


Snowblind

by rosensilence



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Badass Hux, Bathtub Sex, Butt Plugs, Car Sex, I'm sorry Seattle, M/M, Mafia AU, Minor Violence, Modern AU, Morning Sex, Phasma isn't paid enough for this shit, Rimming, Secrets, Skywalker Drama, Slow Burn, Snow, Too many secrets, kidnap and rescue, kylo wants to make his grandfather proud
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-08
Updated: 2018-12-08
Packaged: 2019-09-14 10:28:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 64,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16911249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosensilence/pseuds/rosensilence
Summary: A heavy snowstorm brings Armitage Hux into Kylo Ren's life.  Hux is everything that Kylo didn't know he wanted; he's charming, poised, handsome and rich.  Everything isn't as it seems, however, and Hux's secrets threaten to not only tear them apart, but also put Kylo in danger.Art by the wonderful nocturnalknowitall!





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I have never been to the city of Seattle. I did a lot of research, but apologise for any misrepresentations of the city!
> 
> Art by nocturnalknowitall > [Tumblr](http://nocturnalknowitall.tumblr.com/)  
> Beta by sstensland

“I’ve never seen it snow like this before.”

Kylo looked up from the book he’d been reading–some history book about the Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre that he’d picked at random from the shelves on the far wall—and looked up at his cousin.  Rey was sat on the windowsill of the shop, her face open with wonder as the snow continued to make the outside world disappear beneath a fluffy, white blanket.

It wasn’t unusual for it to snow during January in Seattle, but the amount that had fallen that day was far from usual.  It was bad for business too, as Kylo could count the number of people that had walked into Skywalker Coffee that day on one hand.  The weather reports that morning had warned against anything but necessary travel and it seemed that the populace of Seattle had taken that advice to heart.  Kylo had never been one to listen to good advice however, so he’d opened up the coffee shop as normal and had dragged Rey along for the ride.

Rey stared at the snow like a small child that wanted to run outside and build the world’s greatest snowman, but that was how Rey looked at everything.  Kylo had always been more cynical and jaded, and couldn’t remember a time when he had ever viewed the world with the same optimism that Rey did. It seemed unfair to keep her locked away in the coffee shop when there were so many snowmen to be built.

“Go home, Rey,” Kylo said, returning back to his book.

He could hear the smile in her voice.  “Really? There’s only an hour left until we close, I can stay until then.”

Kylo shook his head.  “I doubt we’ll get any more customers.  Go home and build a snowman with Finn, or whatever it is the cool kids do on snow days these days.”  Kylo was only ten years older than Rey, but some days every day of those years felt like a year in its own right.

Rey disappeared into the staff room at the back of the shop, but poked her head back around the door.  “You’re sure?”

“Get out of here, Rey,” Kylo said with a laugh.

“We’ll make a snowman of you,” Rey said as she shrugged on her winter coat and then layered a waterproof poncho over it.  “Don’t worry, we’ll make it appropriately grumpy.”

Kylo left his book behind and walked Rey to the front door.  The rush of the cold air outside made him shiver, but he didn’t shut the door until he’d watched Rey shuffle out of sight.  She only lived a couple of blocks away and Kylo knew that it’d take more than a foot of snow to stop Rey from arriving at the apartment she shared with her boyfriend, Finn.

He kept himself busy during the minutes that followed by dusting the books that lined the walls of the coffee shop, but no more customers came.  The snow kept coming though and Kylo was glad that he’d chosen to walk to work, too. Although he didn’t live quite as close as Rey did, he knew that it would be easier to walk home than to rely on the rustbucket car he’d inherited from his father.  Kylo’s Pontiac Firebird—or _The Falcon_ , as Han had lovingly named it—often struggled to start on even the sunniest and mildest of days, so Kylo had no faith in its abilities to handle what was beginning to look like a record snowfall.

With thirty minutes left before closing, Kylo decided to start preparing to go home.  There wasn’t much to do—no customers meant little to clean and little money in the cash register to be counted—but as Kylo was on his own, it was enough to keep him busy.  The shop’s sound system played its regular mix of easy listening, golden oldies that Kylo had grown up with and Kylo hummed along as he worked. Each song was a story of a lazy summer vacation working on cars with his father during the day and stargazing at night with his mother.

So distracted by cleaning counters and humming along to Fleetwood Mac’s “Little Lies”, he barely noticed the ring of the bell above the door.  Kylo put the cleaning material below the counter, straightened his apron and stood tall, ready to greet the only customer he’d had in three long hours.

The man seemed more interested in looking through the wide windows that dominated the front of Skywalker Coffee than he did in looking at the menu, but the view of the outside world was rather impressive right now, Kylo thought.  Usually the street that the shop was located on was nothing special and was just one of many streets in Seattle lined with flat brick buildings and the occasional burst of colorful graffiti.  The snow, however, had transformed it into something worth looking at and it reminded Kylo of some of the postcards his grandfather had brought back from his travels.

Kylo pulled his gaze away from the snowstorm outside and returned his attention to his customer.  The man looked frozen. The pale skin of his cheeks was almost as red as the hair Kylo could see poking out from underneath the snowflakes that covered it.  He had no scarf or gloves, and didn’t seem to be wearing a coat either. No wonder he was shivering.

“What can I get you?” Kylo asked.

The customer jumped slightly, as if he hadn’t noticed that Kylo was there. That seemed a little strange to Kylo, but as the man quickly recovered and approached the counter with more confidence and less shivering, it quickly left his mind.

“I’m sorry, but I appear to be in a little spot of bother.”  

His voice was smooth and accented, and Kylo found himself looking at the man a little more closely.  He really was rather striking with his pale skin, red hair and light eyes that Kylo couldn’t quite name the color of.  Kylo was no expert in suits, but even his uneducated eyes knew that the suit the man was wearing was as expensive as hell, as off the rack purchases just did not hug waistlines and thighs the way this suit did.

Kylo had thought that the day had been a waste of time.  At least now there was something pretty to look at.

“What’s the trouble?”

“My car broke down and I left my wallet and phone at the office,” the man said in that lovely accent.  Kylo was sure it was English, although it sounded a little different to Rey’s. “Could I use your phone to call a colleague to come and collect me?  I think your shop is the only one on this block that is still open.”

Kylo scoffed at the not entirely unexpected news that Skywalker Coffee was the only open shop on the block.  He pushed down his disappointment at not having a customer and instead plastered on what Rey ensured him was his most charming smile.  

Kylo was still smiling while he unlocked his cell phone and held it out to the man.  “Sure. This is not the type of weather for waiting around for AAA to come and rescue you, especially if you’re not dressed for the weather.”

The man took the phone from Kylo with a slightly embarrassed thank you. “I’m not very well prepared today, am I?”

“I don’t think anyone is prepared for snow like this.”

Kylo returned back to his cleaning as the man called his colleague.  He tried to give the stranger some privacy as he made the phone call, but in the quiet shop with only the sounds of Bob Dylan singing about his “Subterranean Homesick Blues” for company, it was impossible not to hear a few words.  Nothing of much interest was said, but Kylo couldn’t help but feel sympathetic when the man exclaimed in frustration at having to wait thirty minutes for his ride to arrive.  

After an abrupt goodbye, the redhead strode over to the table Kylo was cleaning and handed his phone back.  He had such fine hands, Kylo noticed. Kylo’s own hands were as big and unwieldy as frying pans, but the stranger’s hands were strong and sure, elegant even in their movements. His skin was so thin and light that Kylo could see the network of veins running through the delicate looking wrist that was poking out from the sleeve of his jacket.

Kylo had never been so transfixed by a wrist before.

“Thank you,” the man said.  “Could I possibly trouble you a little longer?  My colleague won’t be here for thirty minutes, and I’d rather not wait outside.”

Kylo quickly pulled out one of the chairs from the table he’d been cleaning and nearly tripped over one of the legs in his haste.  “Sure, take a seat.”

The man sat down, his elegant hands coming to rest upon the sparkling clean table top.  “Thank you,” he said with a pause, his eyes sweeping up Kylo’s torso until they locked onto the name badge Kylo had forgotten he was wearing, “ _Kylo._ ”

The heating in the shop was set to a level that was meant to be comfortable, not stifling, but there was something about hearing his voice said in that accent that made Kylo feel like he’d fallen into his own coffee roaster.  Although he was still smiling, he was pretty sure that his smile had transformed from the one Rey considered charming to the one that she considered to be a serial killer in the making. Kylo couldn’t help it though, it had been a long time since such an attractive man had openly gawked at him like that.

“Please, don’t let me keep you from your work.  In fact, is there anything I can do to help?”

The thought of those graceful hands cleaning tables and that expensive suit becoming splattered with cleaning products was horrifying to Kylo.  “I don’t have much to do,” he replied. 

If Kylo came in a little earlier, he could leave some of the cleaning until tomorrow morning.  The money in the cash register added up to only four cappuccinos and a soy latte, so it was hardly worth even counting.  He could easily do all of his jobs tomorrow and instead spend the next thirty minutes covertly staring at the stranger that looked completely out of place in his coffee shop.

Skywalker Coffee was a place for students to debate case law over their sickly sweet frappuccinos.  It was a place to kick back in one of the comfortable armchairs that filled the back of the shop while reading one of the many books that lined the walls.  It was where people like Rey met people like Finn, fell in love and moved in together. It was a second chance for a teenage screw-up like Kylo to show his family that he could be responsible and that he was worthy of carrying on the business started by his beloved grandfather.

It was not the kind of place that people like this stranger frequented.  He looked like he belonged in a boardroom somewhere, with his cool eyes staring down anyone who opposed him as his red hair gleamed under the boardroom lights.  That he should be in an expensive wine bar downtown, drinking the most expensive bottle of red with a heartbreaking smile reserved only for the person lucky enough to be on his arm.  He was out of Kylo’s league and not someone who should be sat in a coffee shop that was more well known for the crazy quotes on the promotional board outside than it was for its coffee.

Although the snow that had covered the man’s red hair and the smooth gray of his suit had now melted, he still looked as cold as ever.  His sharp cheekbones were still pink with cold and if Kylo watched closely enough, he was sure that he could see a shiver running through the lithe figure.  Kylo looked over the neat handwriting on the chalkboard menu that was nailed to the wall and made a decision.

The stranger jumped in surprise when Kylo placed a tray in front of him with a loud clatter of porcelain tableware.  “What’s this?”

“You looked cold,” Kylo answered.  “A warm drink should help.”

“I don’t have any money—”

Kylo waved away the protest.  “It’s on the house. Don’t worry about it.”

A strange look passed over the stranger’s face.  It was a mixture of dumbstruck and touched, as if he wasn’t used to people being kind to him and didn’t quite know how to react.  Kylo could understand that reaction all too well as there had been a time when he had been convinced that the entire world was against him and that any kind gesture came with an ulterior motive.  He didn’t sense that same misplaced anger in the man seated before him, but there was definitely a story to be told.

“You really are too kind.”  The man’s fingers lightly touched the label that was attached to the tea bag inside the pot, and he smiled when he read the few words that were written upon it.  “Earl Grey. My favorite. How did you guess?”

“It’s my party trick,” Kylo said with no sense of humility.  “I can guess the favorite drink of anyone I see.”

“Really?” the man asked, a hint of amusement creeping into his previously cool voice.

“You see that man over there?” Kylo asked, gesturing out of the window at a middle aged man that was struggling against the snowstorm as he slowly walked down the street.  “I would bet a bag of my finest coffee beans that his favorite drink is a vanilla latte with nonfat milk, whipped cream, and seven Splendas.  Six of them mixed in, and one sprinkled on top of the whipped cream to make it extra crunchy.”

The man laughed, causing that air of untouchability that enveloped him to crack open.  And in that moment, he seemed like the kind of man that just maybe, Kylo could talk to.  Perhaps it wasn’t completely unlikely that a man like this would come to Skywalker Coffee just to drink some Earl Grey while listening to The Kinks and reading about the Roman Empire.  

“That is not a real drink.”

“Go ask him,” Kylo said with a smile.  “He orders it every day and twice on Saturdays.”

“I think I’ll stick with my Earl Grey.”  The small hourglass on the man’s tray had ran out as he spoke.  He lifted the lid of the teapot, taking a moment to sniff the scent of bergamot that filled the air, before dutifully removing the tea bag and putting it on the little plate provided.  “This teapot is big enough for two. You should join me, if you’re not too busy.”

Kylo had never been a tea drinker—he much preferred the punch of a black coffee over what he considered to be the dirty water taste of tea—but he wasn’t going to decline an offer like that.  He grabbed a cup from behind the counter as quickly as he could without breaking anything and took the seat opposite the man, smiling gently when the stranger poured cups for them both. On the rare occasions that Kylo did drink tea he usually overloaded it with sugar and milk, but upon seeing his temporary companion use only a splash of milk and a single sugar cube in his, Kylo did the same.

It still tasted like dirty water to Kylo, but somehow, it didn’t seem that bad this time.

“Hux,” the man said, reaching over the tea tray between them to shake Kylo’s hand.  

Kylo could see that wrist again, the stark blue veins underneath the skin snaking up to spread across the stranger’s palm.  Did veins usually stand out that much, Kylo wondered, or was it just a sign of exactly how fine and delicate the man’s skin really was?  When he finally took that hand into his own clumsy, awkward one, he was surprised by not only the softness of the skin, but by how firm the handshake was.  There was steel beneath that satin skin, and that was the most intriguing part of all.

It took Kylo a few moments to realize that the man had said something. “What?”

“My name.  It’s Hux.”

_Hux_.  Kylo had no idea if that was a first name, surname or nickname but he liked it.  It was unique and striking, just like the man behind it. “I’m Kylo—but you already know that,” Kylo said with an embarrassed smile.

The man— _Hux_ , Kylo’s mind helpfully amended—just smiled back.  He picked up his cup of tea but paused when he saw the neat text on the side.  “Speaking of names, Skywalker Coffee?  Such an interesting name for a coffee shop, I’ve never heard it before.”

“I’m not surprised you haven’t heard of it as this is the only one,” Kylo explained.  “My grandfather founded it nearly fifty years ago. He’s the Skywalker in Skywalker Coffee.”

“Is that so?  It’s good to see a family business still going strong.  I much prefer the personal touch over the impersonal blandness of big corporations.”

“There were a few tough times,” Kylo said, purposely skipping over the troubles that had plagued his grandfather, “but everything is steady now.  Apart from on snow days, of course.”

Hux looked around the coffee shop, taking in the empty tables that surrounded them and the cosiness of the decor.  Most of the coffee shops in town were trendy and minimalist, all bare walls with painted on slogans, shiny counters and chilled ambient music that made as much sense as music to Kylo’s ears as listening to whales did.  

In contrast, Skywalker Coffee had barely changed since Anakin had opened it in 1970.  It had been intended as a comfortable space where families could get together and relax over a cup of coffee.  Kylo’s mother had called the intimate atmosphere a legacy of Anakin’s desire to keep his own family together despite nearly tearing it apart, and when the coffee shop had been passed down following Anakin’s death to her and her twin brother, Leia had never had the heart to change it.  Kylo couldn’t bring himself to, either.

Kylo liked the soft furnishings, the antique tables and piles of books that were everywhere.  As a toddler, he’d spent more time climbing the couches by the counter while Leia made coffee than he had at home.  After a period of wanting to burn his family legacy down and everything that came with it during his late teens and early twenties, he found that with his thirtieth birthday rapidly approaching he now found solace in the familiarity of the shop.

Hux stood up and wandered over to the display of photos that decorated the wall by the counter.  Kylo barely paid any attention to them these days, but he’d been fascinated by them when he’d spent his elementary school vacations in the shop, nursing glasses of orange juice and being fussed over by the customers.  

“Is this your grandfather?”

Kylo walked over to see what photo Hux was pointing at.  He was only a little taller than Hux, and despite the padded shoulders of Hux’s still damp suit jacket it was easy to see that Hux was far slimmer than he was.  They’d fit together quite nicely, Kylo thought. 

The photo was a black and white shot that had been taken on the day of the shop’s opening.  Anakin stood front and center, his features still handsome despite the scar that marred his face and the almost permanent scowl on his mouth.  His six-year-old twins stood either side of him, smiling cheekily for the camera while surrounded by other family members and well-wishers.

“Yeah, that’s him.  This is him, too.”

The second photo of Anakin that Kylo pointed out had a completely different energy.  It had been taken seven years before the opening of the coffee shop in 1970 and showed a happier and unscarred Anakin.  It had been taken on the day of his wedding and the love that flowed between Anakin and his bride Padmé was easy to see, even fifty years later.

“I can see the resemblance,” Hux said, turning away from the photos to look at Kylo again.  “He was a very handsome man.”

Hux walked away then and returned to his seat, crossing one long leg over the other as he sipped at his cooling tea.  It took Kylo several seconds to follow him as he couldn’t stop his brain from replaying the last thing Hux had said to him.  Hux had called Anakin handsome, something that Kylo knew was objectively true, but he’d also said that Kylo looked like him. Did that mean that Hux thought that Kylo was handsome, too?

Kylo hadn’t received many compliments in his life, other than for the occasional few about the body that he had worked very hard to sculpt, but that one from Hux had to be one of the strangest.  Once Kylo had regained his senses he sat down opposite Hux again, but with a lot less grace than Hux had. 

He wanted to keep Hux talking, but chatting with attractive men was not in his skill set.  “What do you do for a living, Hux?” 

Hux paused, his indescribable eyes widening for a fraction of a second before an easy smile spread across his lips.  “I’m in insurance. It’s immensely boring.”

“How long have you worked in insurance for?”

“Too long,” Hux said, waving his hand in the air as if he was batting away the topic.  “When did you start working here?”

“I did a few shifts when I was in high school.”  Actually, Kylo had missed more shifts than he’d actually done, but Hux didn’t need to know that.  “But I didn’t start working here full time until I was twenty-four, so, about five years. I took over the day-to-day management nearly two years ago.”

After somehow graduating high school, Kylo had ran away to New York with only his trust fund and a bad attitude.  The trust fund had been quickly frozen, but the bad attitude had remained his constant companion until he’d woken up one day, broke, cold and on a stranger’s floor.  As he’d picked up his meager belongings he’d finally realized that he was worth so much more. Coming back to Seattle and apologizing to his family had been the hardest thing that Kylo had ever done, but it had also been the turning point in his life.

There was too much of his grandfather in him, his family had said.  And just like Anakin, he was trying to find his salvation in Skywalker Coffee.  Kylo was determined, however, that his story would not end the same way.

“You must see so many interesting people each day.  Just ordinary people, drinking coffee, meeting friends and reading some of these wonderful books.”  

A tone of nostalgia had crept into Hux’s voice, as if he was thinking about a time when he could have been one of those people.  Kylo wondered what circumstances had conspired against Hux that meant he could no longer enjoy the simple pleasures of a coffee shop.  Not for the first time Kylo was struck by the thought that Hux had an interesting story bubbling beneath his suit and politeness, and he found himself eager to discover every page of it.

Hux was staring out of the window at the still falling snow.  It was dark now, and the street lights that lined the sidewalk outside lit up the snow on the ground with an ethereal glow that looked like something Kylo had seen in a painting several lifetimes ago.  It made the outside world look imaginary, and the coffee shop like it was the only thing that was real. Kylo looked at Hux; at the hard set of his jaw, and the wonder in his eyes as he stared out of the front window, and he felt like they were the only two people left in the universe.

“Honestly Hux, you’re by far the most interesting person I’ve had in this coffee shop in months.”

“Am I really?”

“It’s mainly law students and book clubs full of members that take great joy in telling me how cute I was as a five year old,” Kylo said, happy to hear a snort of laughter come from Hux.  “That’s the problem with family businesses–the loyal customers remember your awkward years and obsession with Pokémon.”

“Well, I don’t know if you’ve outgrown Pokémon, but you’ve certainly outgrown any teenage awkwardness.”

There was often a fine line between polite compliments and blatant flirting and Kylo never had been able to tell the difference.  He wasn’t inexperienced but the majority of his pick ups had been aided by the false courage of alcohol, and the others had involved a teenaged Poe Dameron and his tendency to kiss first, talk later.  Is this how responsible adults like Hux went about things, with flirtations that could be written off as compliments if they didn’t score the desired effect?

“You’ve never seen me dance,” Kylo replied, trying to keep the conversation light despite the way his heart was pounding in his chest. “My cousin says I have the grace of an elephant on roller skates.”

Hux’s eyes crinkled at the edges when he laughed, Kylo noticed. “Elephants are my favorite animals.”

“You’d change your mind after I step on your toes a few times.”

“Oh, I don’t think so.”

There was such confidence in Hux’s tone and posture.  He’d gone from stiffly sitting in his chair like an emperor on his throne to leaning into the shared space of the table between them, his elbows on the table and a relaxed smile on his lips.  The artificial lighting of the shop was shining in Hux’s eyes and Kylo still couldn’t name the color. They looked both as cool as the snow outside the shop and as fiery as the coffee roaster inside it, and Kylo wanted to get even closer.

Before Kylo could say or do anything he’d regret, the bell above the shop door rang.  He jumped to his feet and was halfway to the counter in his eagerness to serve a new customer when he noticed that Hux had also stood up.  The expression on Hux’s face couldn’t quite be classified as a smile but there was a certain softness and fondness to it, and Kylo instinctively knew that this customer was the colleague that Hux had been waiting for.

She was tall, taller than Hux and potentially taller than Kylo even.  Like Hux she wore what looked like an expensive pantsuit, but at least she had the sense to wrap up warm in a jacket, scarf and gloves.  The high heels that were poking out of the cuffs of her dark gray slacks seemed less sensible, however, and only added to her height. In her own way she was just as striking as Hux.  Her white blonde hair was short and impeccably styled despite the snow that clung to it and she had a look on her face that said she could break a man, and that she’d enjoy every minute of it.

Exactly what type of insurance company did these two work for?

“Phasma,” Hux said, addressing the woman, “thank you for coming to fetch me.”

“You call, I obey,” she replied flatly.  She looked past Hux to where Kylo still stood at the counter and Kylo nearly took a step back from the fire in that stare.  “Is everything okay, boss?”

“Of course.  Kylo has been very helpful.”

Phasma glanced between Kylo and Hux.  She quirked an eyebrow at Hux and sighed to herself.  “I’m sure he has been.”

Kylo might have been mistaken, but he was sure that the redness on Hux’s pale cheeks was no longer the result of the cold, but was in fact an embarrassed blush.  Hux said nothing though, he simply pushed his chair underneath the table and picked the drinks tray up. There was an area for dirty trays and tableware and after locating it Hux headed straight there.  It was right next to where Kylo was standing and he simply watched as Hux deposited the tray.

This was the closest they’d been.  If Kylo moved one step to his left, his arm would brush against Hux’s and he’d be able to feel the smooth wool of Hux’s suit against his bare forearm.  Maybe he’d be able to smell him, or feel the heat radiating from his body. Would Hux allow Kylo into his personal space like that? Would he step closer, or would he move away. Had Hux’s flirtations been genuine, or just a way to kill time until Phasma arrived to take him home?

Kylo had no way of knowing.  One thing he did know at this distance, was that Hux’s eyes were green.

“Kylo, it was nice to meet you.  I’m very thankful for your help, and for the tea.”

Hux was holding out his hand again and Kylo didn’t hesitate to take it. “You’re welcome. I’m glad I could help.”

“Maybe I’ll drop by again sometime if I’m in the area.  It might be nice to see what else is on offer.”

Genuine flirtations or not, they still made Kylo’s head spin.  “If you ask nicely, I’ll make sure you get something special, Hux.”

Hux let go of the handshake.  He smiled at Kylo one last time before spinning sharply on his heels and walking towards where Phasma still stood at the door with an exasperated grimace on her face.  Kylo could tell from even this short amount of time that Hux and Phasma’s relationship went beyond just colleagues, and he was equally sure that it wasn’t anything approaching a sexual nature.  He’d love to ask Hux about her and was disappointed that he might never get the chance to ask Hux about anything more at all.

Phasma was already out of the door, the snow quickly building up in her hair again before Hux stopped and turned back one last time.  “What do I get if I don’t ask nicely?”

Before Kylo could answer, Hux was gone.

Kylo ran a hand through his hair and sighed loudly into the empty coffee shop.  Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Free Bird” was drifting through the speakers and it was five minutes past closing time, but Kylo found it difficult to move.  His palm still tingled from the handshake and his head still span from everything that had just happened. It had been a long time since anyone had set Kylo’s pulse racing in the way that Hux had, and Kylo both wanted to push the feeling away, and to embrace it.

He guessed that it didn’t really matter, as he doubted he’d ever see Hux again.  

Eventually he forced his feet to move and he flipped the sign on the door to _Closed_ before locking it.  The signboard that usually sat on the sidewalk outside had never been taken out from its overnight resting place in the stockroom, so he simply turned off the lights and made his way to the staff room.  He took off his apron and name badge and collected his things so that he could leave.

The cleaning could wait.  The pitiful amount of money that was sitting in the cash register could wait.  All Kylo wanted to do was go home, eat, and maybe jack off in the shower to thoughts of red hair, green eyes and delicate looking wrists.

Setting the alarm and locking the back door behind him, he headed home through the snow.

**

Kylo thought about Hux a lot in the days that followed. Whenever the bell above the door rang his head would snap up from whatever he was doing, his breath sticking in his throat until he saw yet another customer that wasn't Hux walk through the door. As the snow finally began to melt he stopped looking so much, and by the time it was gone nearly a week later, he'd pushed all thoughts of seeing Hux again from his mind.

Hux was the same as that record breaking heavy snowfall, Kylo thought. A once in a lifetime occurrence that was magical at the time but once gone, was hard to believe it had ever been real.

**

There were many aspects of managing Skywalker Coffee that Kylo enjoyed, but organizing the weekly work roster was not one of them.  The shop only had five members of staff including himself, and with Rey and Rose both still at college and having to fit in shifts around their studies it was a never-ending headache to make a schedule that both pleased everyone, and ensured the shop was fully staffed.  It usually resulted in Kylo taking on more hours himself than he should, but atoning for years as a bad Skywalker didn’t come easy.

The only thing he liked about making the schedule was the hours of peace it gave him.  He’d hide away in the cupboard that was masquerading as the manager’s office—the door and table so close together that he barely had room for his legs—and could work on it without interruption.  Thursday afternoons were the quietest time of the week so he’d spend a couple of undisturbed hours sipping coffee and pulling his hair out as he tried to create a schedule that worked for everyone.  With the ever changing college timetables of Rey and Rose, Finn’s insistence on working as many of the same shifts as Rey as possible, and Jess’ active social life, it was not an easy task.

It hardly seemed fair that Kylo had to sacrifice his own social life and dreams in order to cover for his staff.  However, as Kylo’s social life and dreams consisted only of a gym membership and Netflix subscription he couldn’t really complain.  Since he’d moved back to Seattle five years ago his life consisted of work and the gym. There’d been a few distractions along the way—a couple of people that had drifted in and out of his life and his bed—but nothing that he’d been able to maintain.  Or, if he was being completely honest with himself, nothing that he’d actually tried to maintain.

Maybe that was part of the reason why that brief thirty minutes he’d spent with Hux had had such an effect on him.  Hux had been the first person that Kylo felt that inexplicable draw to since his awkward teenage self had first met Poe Dameron and was amazed that the star quarterback knew his name.  He’d still called himself Ben then of course, but looking back at Ben’s life was like recalling his favorite movie as kid. Kylo could remember the main plot lines and the characters, and there was a fair amount of nostalgia present, but the relevance to his current life was sorely lacking.

Kylo double checked the mass of handwritten notes from his staff and cross referenced them against his draft schedule.  He always managed to miss something, so he’d taken to writing a draft schedule before he committed to writing out the final version.  Each staff member had their own color and Kylo took a strange amount of pride in producing a schedule that was both correct, and aesthetically pleasing.  After all, those childhood calligraphy classes had to be put to some use. It would all be ruined as soon as it was pinned to the wall as Rey would attack it with love hearts whenever she shared a shift with Finn and Jess would write corny motivational phrases on it, but at the beginning at least, it would be orderly and perfect.

He was just finishing his check when there was a sharp knock on the office door.  Although his staff knew not to disturb Kylo when he was putting together the schedule, they also knew that if there was a situation that only Kylo in his role as manager could deal with, then his door was always open to them.

There was, however, no space for the door to open when Kylo was wedged into his cupboard-office, so he stood up, opened the door himself and stepped into the hall outside.  

“Is everything okay, Finn?”

“Maybe?” Finn said.  “There’s a guy that’s demanding to speak to you.”

“Is he angry?  Does he want to make a complaint?”

“No, he’s really polite.  He’s just adamant that you’re the only person he can speak to.”

“He’s probably trying to sell something,” Kylo said with a sigh.  It didn’t happen every week, but occasionally somebody would come into the shop and try to sell Kylo something.  Maybe some new ceramics, or coffee, or a new fast and efficient coffee roaster that could not only roast the best coffee, but also piss gold or something equally ludicrous.

Finn seemed to consider this for a few moments before speaking again.  “I don’t think he is. He doesn’t have a bag or briefcase with him, and he didn’t ask for the manager, he asked for you by name.”

“I’ll be out in a minute.”

Finn nodded in acknowledgement and headed back to the front of the shop. As Kylo gulped down the last few mouthfuls of his now cold coffee, he racked his brains to try and figure out who could be waiting for him.  If they knew his name, then it stood to reason that they knew him, and the number of people that knew Kylo Ren was not that large. 

There was the six guys he trained with at the gym, of course.  They formed a little tight knit community and jokingly called themselves Kylo’s ‘knights’ as he’d taken it upon himself to create tailored training plans for them all.  As far as Kylo was aware, however, they didn’t know where he worked. He had a few exes that knew where he worked, but none of them would be politely asking for him. No, considering how Kylo’s relationships usually ended, they’d be calling for his blood.  Any other friends he had he was sure Finn knew already.

Kylo was still pondering who was waiting for him when he walked back into the front of the shop.  Finn pointed at a gentleman that was sitting on one of the comfortable sofas that lay against the back wall, but the gesture was unnecessary.  Kylo’s gaze had immediately been snared by red hair, indescribable eyes and cheekbones so sharp that Kylo could almost feel them cutting into his skin even at this distance.

_Hux._

Just as Kylo had put to rest any chance of seeing Hux again the man had reappeared.  Hux was like the ghost of a long forgotten memory that had been brought roaring back to life again.  It seemed so much longer than a week since Kylo had seen him, but it also felt like no time at all. 

Hux seemed perfectly comfortable on that sofa.  His suit, although different from the week before, looked just as expensive and immaculate but somehow seemed to suit the rustic feel of Skywalker Coffee.  Hux had picked up a book from the shelves that lined the walls near where he sat and he was fully focused on it, the noise and movements of the other customers not seeming to register with him at all.  As Kylo walked across the shop to the sounds of Eric Clapton’s “Wonderful Tonight", he tried to control his breathing and relax like uncle Luke had once taught him to.  

What did Hux want?  Why had he come back and specifically asked for Kylo?

Kylo could think of several heart racing reasons why Hux had come back, but he instantly dismissed them.  They were the reasons found in Rey’s cheesy romance novels, where prospective lovers would make grand gestures in the middle of ordinary places like coffee shops and everyone lived happily ever after.  Kylo’s life had never been like that, and he didn’t see Hux as the kind of man that would rush in and sweep the object of his affections off their feet.

It was while Kylo was still pondering this that Hux finally looked up from his book.  Kylo—with his above average height, strong physique and shoulder length brown hair that was currently pulled up into a half bun—had never been one that could blend into a crowd, and Hux instantly spotted him.  The book was closed and placed beside him as Hux simply sat up straight and waited for Kylo to take the last few steps he needed to reach Hux’s table.

“Thank you for meeting with me,” Hux said, an easy smile spreading across his lips.  “I hope I haven’t interrupted anything?”

Kylo sat down on the wooden chair across the table from Hux.  “Nothing that can’t wait for an hour or so.”

“Ah, that’s good.  The coffee shop certainly has a different energy today compared to last time I was here.”

That was true.  Last week, amidst a record-breaking snowfall, Skywalker Coffee had been empty and quiet.  Now, it was back to its usual bustling self, with every table occupied and three busy baristas effortlessly working together behind the counter.  It was rare for Kylo to actually stop and take a look at his shop, but he felt a sense of pride at how popular and successful Skywalker Coffee had become under his management.  There had been a time—before Kylo was born—when the shop had nearly closed, but that was due to Anakin and his—

Kylo didn’t want to think about that.  “This is one of our quieter times, actually.  Usually the take-out line is almost to the door.”

“With such wonderful staff, it’s no wonder you’re so popular.”

In the days that immediately followed meeting Hux, Kylo had wondered if he’d imagined Hux’s flirtations.  A man as stunning and classy as Hux couldn’t have been interested in a disaster area like Kylo, could he? It didn’t seem possible.  But here they were, one week later and Hux was back to those comments that Kylo couldn’t quite decide whether they were flirtations or simple compliments.

“You don’t have a drink,” Kylo said.  And it was true, Hux didn’t. The only thing Hux had with him was the book he was reading—John Dickson Carr’s “The Devil in Velvet".

“I didn’t come for a drink.”

“Then why did you come?  Why did you ask for me?”

“I don’t like being in anybody’s debt,” Hux explained.  He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a plain, black leather wallet.  “I want to pay you back for the tea you gave me last week.”

Kylo watched dumbfounded as Hux pulled out a five dollar bill and placed it on the table between them.  He’d really come back just to pay for his drink? “It was on the house, you don’t need to pay”

“I appreciate your generosity, but please, let me pay what I owe.”

“You don’t owe anything, Hux.  You kept me company for thirty minutes when I had nothing else to do.  That’s worth more than a cup of tea.”

Hux tilted his head to one side and looked at Kylo like he was a puzzle that Hux needed to solve.  Hux really seemed to be struggling with the concept of receiving a free drink, and it left Kylo wondering why Hux didn’t seem able to accept the drink for the friendly gesture it was.  Kylo had dealt with people before who were too proud to accept a free drink or meal and insisted on paying their share. In fact, it was a stance that Kylo himself usually took. But this seemed like something different.

It was as if Hux was expecting that one day, Kylo would use that free drink against him.

“Please, it would make me feel better if you took it.”

“And it would make me feel worse,” Kylo said with a smile.

Thankfully, Hux smiled too.  “You’re very stubborn.”

“Hey, I’m not the guy who came back a week later in order to pay a bill that didn’t exist.”

“Ah, yes.  I meant to come by earlier, but work has kept me very busy.”

“I guess the snow caused you some problems, huh?”

A flicker of confusion washed over Hux’s face.  “The snow?”

“I imagine that the snow caused a few car crashes, personal injuries, even roof collapses.  It must keep an insurance company like yours busy.”

“Yes, of course,” Hux said quickly.  “Any extreme weather is a nightmare for insurance services.”

“What type of insurance do you sell, anyway?”

“Personal, house—  Can we not talk about my business?  I talk about it all day and even I find it boring.”

Kylo shrugged his shoulders.  He didn’t particularly find insurance interesting either, but he did find _Hux_ interesting and wanted to learn more about him.  Kylo quickly realized that he didn’t actually know anything about Hux other than the fact that he was in insurance and worked with a slightly scary woman named Phasma.  Where did Hux’s accent come from? Had he been in America long? What music did he like? What food did he hate?

Kylo wanted to know everything, no matter how mundane.

“If insurance is so boring, what do you do for fun?”

“I don’t have much free time,” Hux replied with a teasing smile, “but I do like irritating coffee shop managers by trying to pay for my drinks.”

“You’re doing very good at that.  There must be more to your life than just insurance and annoying me though.”

Hux shifted in his seat slightly, leaning forward so that his elbows came to rest upon the table on either side of the five dollar bill that still sat between them.  “Let me see. I like candlelight dinners, relaxing on the beach and walking hand in hand beneath the moonlight.”

Kylo bowed his head and laughed.  Getting a straight answer out of Hux turned out to be as impossible as asking Jess to work a Saturday evening, but at least his answers were amusing.  A lock of hair had escaped from the half bun that Kylo wore his hair in and he brushed it away, instantly noticing how Hux’s eyes were glued to the gesture.

Kylo took a deep breath and decided to play Hux at his own game.  “That’s lucky. I love cooking, working on my tan and going for late night walks.”

“We seem oddly compatible.  Other than for this money issue.”  Hux pushed the five dollar bill closer to Kylo.

Kylo pushed it back.  They sat like that for a few moments, Hux’s well manicured fingers on his side of the bill, and Kylo’s rough fingers on the other side.  They were pushing against each other and causing the bill to rise up in the middle like a little barrier separating them. It must have looked ridiculous to anyone that was watching them and Kylo was pretty sure that even if nobody else was watching, Rey was.  Although ten years his junior, Rey was immensely protective of Kylo. He knew that as soon as Hux left, Rey would have a million questions for him. He also knew that he wasn’t quite sure how to answer any of them.

Kylo took his fingers away and watched as the bill crumpled back onto the table.  “A gift is a gift, Hux. Did nobody tell you it’s rude to try and pay for one?”

“Did nobody tell you that the customer is always right?”

“You’re not exactly a customer though, are you?”

Hux smirked.  Kylo had the distinct impression that Hux was enjoying their banter and if he was honest with himself, Kylo was enjoying it too.  “If I’m not a customer Kylo, what am I?”

It was a good question, and one Kylo had hoped Hux wouldn’t ask.  “Last week you were a guest, I guess? And you haven’t bought anything today, so I’d say you’re a guest again.”

Hux seemed amused by what Kylo said, but he wasn’t the easiest person to read.  “Do you invite many guests to your coffee shop?”

“No.”

“Does that make me special?”

“I guess it does.”

Hux appeared satisfied with that answer and leaned back into the sofa behind him again, leaving the money on the table.  “You’re very entertaining, Kylo. I like speaking with you.”

Kylo was aware that his mouth was gaping open like a fish chasing food, but he couldn’t even hope to hide his surprise.  Not many people—other than Rey, and occasionally Dameron when he wanted something—would seek out conversations with Kylo.  Even conversations with his gym knights usually stalled as soon as conversation moved on from training or diets. Yet here was Hux, an intelligent, refined, and frankly gorgeous man saying he enjoyed Kylo’s company.

A heat spread across his face and, judging from Hux’s more prominent smirk, his blush was definitely visible.  “I like speaking with you, too.”

Hux’s smirk changed into something entirely more genuine and heartwarming.  “I’m glad— Excuse me.”

Kylo watched as Hux reached into his jacket and pulled out his cell phone. The sound was muted, but it was easy for Kylo to see that somebody was calling.  The phone’s display was lit up and Kylo could just about hear it vibrating over the last few bars of The Romantics’ “What I Like About You”.

When Hux answered, he was abrupt and to the point.  His only responses to the lengthy comments of his conversation partner were the occasional grunt of acknowledgment and an unimpressed sounding confirmation that he’d be right there.  Hux hung up the call with a sigh and slipped it back into his jacket.

“As much as I would love to stay and speak with you some more, I’m afraid duty calls.”

“It’s okay.  You’re busy, and I have a roster that won’t schedule itself to finish.”

Hux stood up.  He had no bag or briefcase with him, just another expensive suit and the confidence to carry it off.  “It’s a shame. I was quite looking forward to spending the afternoon here, speaking with you and finishing that book.”

“No rest for the wicked, huh?”

“Indeed,” Hux said with a smile.  “Until next time, Kylo.”

Kylo was too preoccupied with Hux’s assertion that there would be a next time to realize that Hux had walked away and left the five dollar bill on the table.  When his brain eventually caught up, Hux was almost at the door. Kylo picked up the book Hux had been reading and the five dollars and hastily stuffed it inside.

“Hux!”   If Rey hadn’t have been watching already, she would be now that Kylo had just shouted across the coffee shop at Hux.

With his hand on the door handle, Hux stopped at the sound of Kylo’s voice. “Miss me already?”

Kylo felt his blush spread to his ears.  “I wanted to give you the book you were reading.  You said you wanted to finish it, so go ahead. Just bring it back when you’re done.”

Hux didn’t say anything.  He simply tucked “The Devil in Velvet”—with its hidden five dollar bill inside—under his arm and walked out of the shop.

When Kylo turned around, he nearly walked right into Rey.  She’d been standing right behind him, and from the grin on her face Kylo knew she’d been watching everything.  Finn and Jess were behind the counter, trying to look busy while obviously focusing all of their energy on the conversation Rey was about to drag out of him.

“So, who was that?” Rey asked.  She was so excited she was hopping, her customary three buns bouncing with every movement.

“His name is Hux.  He came in after you went home early last week.  He didn’t have any money or his phone with him, so I let him stay here while he waited for his ride.”

“And?”

“That’s all.”

“So why did he come back today, huh?”

“I gave him a drink while he was waiting and he wanted to pay for it today.  I wouldn’t accept his money, though.”

Rey frowned.  It was clear that Kylo’s explanation wasn’t what she wanted to hear and that she didn’t entirely believe him either.  “Are you telling me everything? You seemed pretty sweet on him.”

Kylo didn’t respond.  Instead he went behind the counter and headed back to his office.  He did have a roster to complete after all. As expected, Rey followed him.  She had to take two steps for every one of his strides, but she wasn’t willing to let him get away until she’d finished questioning him.

“You are sweet on him, aren’t you?  I don’t blame you, he is pretty hot.”  Rey ignored Finn’s indignant response and carried on following Kylo, managing to put herself between Kylo and the door to his office.  “It’s been a while since I’ve seen you with anyone. You know I’m just looking out for you.”

“I know, Rey.  He’s just a guy that’s come to the shop a couple of times, though.  I promise that if he becomes anything more, you can interrogate him to your heart’s content.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” said Rey, lightly punching Kylo in the arm as she always did.  “Now, finish that roster and make sure that all of my shifts sync up with Finn’s.”

Kylo nodded and watched her walk back into the front of the shop before he went back into the office.  The roster remained untouched while he thought about Hux. Would Hux be back like he said he would? Would he return the book after finding the five dollars in there?  For the first time in a long time, Kylo found he had something other than work and the gym to look forward to.

**

It was Monday lunchtime before Hux returned.

Unlike the previous two times Hux had been to the shop, Monday lunchtime was one of the busiest times for Skywalker Coffee.  Every seat was taken; the customers a mix of law students researching papers, coffee aficionados and the weekly meeting of the German Heritage Society of Seattle.  The takeout line was even busier as it stretched from the counter all the way to the door. 

Rose was working the front of the shop, ensuring the line stayed tight and orderly as she handed out menus and helped people choose their drinks. She could run around the shop for hours; directing customers and cleaning tables without ever slowing or losing her enthusiasm. She was a big favorite with the stressed out law students, and she was always willing to run to the counter to get refills while they remained at their tables with their noses buried in their books.

Rey was at the cash register.  It was her preferred place to work, and Kylo had to admit that she was good at it.  Many people walked up to Rey prepared to order a small cappuccino yet came away with a large sized one and a slice of cake.  Rey was the master of effortless upselling and it was almost as if she was using mind tricks on the customers.

Busy lunchtimes meant all hands on deck, so both Finn and Kylo himself were on drink making duty.  There wasn’t much space behind the counter and Kylo wasn’t a small man, but the two of them had working together down to a fine art.  It hadn’t been like that at the beginning; there had been plenty of crushed toes and dropped coffee cups as they kept walking into each other, but now it was a well-oiled coffee machine.

Kylo was busy making a caffè mocha with extra cream when he noticed that Rey’s tone of voice had changed.  Although Kylo always kept an ear open for Rey’s impressively loud shouts of the incoming orders, her conversations with the customers were just background noise to him.  Rey’s upselling, Rose’s cheerfulness, Finn’s tendency to talk to himself as he made drinks, and the 1970s rock that played in the shop were all just a ball of sound that wrapped around Kylo as he worked.  They were all comforting, in their own way.

Maybe that’s why the change in her voice stood out so much to Kylo. Instead of Rey’s usual polite but friendly tone that she used with customers, it had changed to something far more excitable, and far more _Rey_.  He expected to see one of Rey’s college friends that popped in from time to time, but instead, all he saw was the face that had been haunting him for days.

Kylo suddenly felt nauseous at the thought of Rey talking to Hux.  She was far too inquisitive for her own good and it seemed to be taking far longer than it needed to for him to be served.  Hux was smiling in that polite but distant way that he did sometimes, but he didn’t appear to be annoyed by what Rey was saying to him.  If anything, there was a hint of amusement creeping onto his face.

Kylo quickly handed over the caffè mocha to its customer, side stepped Finn, and moved a little closer to the cash register.  He was too late though. He watched as Hux handed over a ten dollar bill which Rey neatly put away in the cash register. The transaction finished and Rey was shouting out Hux’s order—a large cup of Darjeeling tea to go—before moving onto the next customer.

As the manager of Skywalker Coffee, Kylo knew the price of every drink. He didn’t need to check the menu he’d created to know that a large Darjeeling only cost $4.65, yet Hux had received no change from his ten. Kylo signalled to Finn that he’d take care of making Hux’s order, but before he started he made sure to speak with Rey first. He waited for Rey to finish speaking to her customer before quickly having a word with her.  Luckily the next customer in line was a regular that knew Kylo was the manager and had no problem waiting while he spoke to one of his staff.

“Why didn’t you give Hux any change?”

Rey turned to him, her eyes sparkling in that way they did whenever she saw a cute couple splitting a pastry.  “He came back to see you again!”

Kylo could feel himself blushing, but he pushed away his excitement at what Rey had just said and repeated himself in a more assertive tone.  “The change, Rey?”

“Oh!  He said that we could keep it.  It was over five dollars, too! A tipper like that is a keeper, Kylo.”

It was as Kylo had expected.  “He’s not tipping, he’s trying to pay for that drink again.”  Kylo opened the cash register and took a five dollar bill out. “If he ever comes in again and tries to tip, don’t accept it.”

Rey smiled.  She was enjoying this far too much.  “Whatever you say, Kylo. I don’t want to get in the way of true love.”

“It’s not—”

Kylo sighed.  Rey had already returned to serving and obviously had no intention of listening to his denial.  Kylo sidestepped Finn again, noting that Finn now had a suspiciously wide grin, and grabbed a large sized paper cup.  Hux was waiting patiently at the far end of the counter and Kylo snuck a glance as he waited for the cup to fill with hot water.  Hux looked as good as ever. His red hair was neatly styled and Kylo longed to run his fingertips through it. Would Hux like that?  Was he the kind of person who liked his hair to be touched, or would he bat Kylo’s hands away?

“Kylo!”

So lost in his daydreams of seeing red hair slip through his fingers, he didn’t realize that the cup was in danger of overflowing until Finn worriedly shouted his name.  Kylo quickly removed his finger from the hot water button and just about managed to save himself from an overflowing cup and the burnt fingers it would cause.

Finn’s shout had served another purpose too—it had gained Hux’s attention and he was staring right at Kylo.

Kylo smiled in greeting and was treated to a smile in return.  He could have stood there for hours, just smiling at Hux, but the hot drink in his hand and the snigger of amusement from Finn forced him back into action.  Making a cup of tea, any tea, was the easiest drink on the menu to make. Teabag, hot water, done. The customers would then add their own milk and sugar as required.  Kylo could make tea in his sleep. But with Hux watching his every move with obvious interest, even the simplest task became difficult again. It took five attempts for Kylo to fix the lid onto the cup safely—for the first three he was using the wrong size—and he nearly forgot the cardboard sleeve.

With Hux watching Kylo had to be careful, but he managed to slip the five from the till in-between the cup and the paper sleeve.

“Here’s your tea,” Kylo said.  He passed the cup over, making sure that the money was facing away from Hux.

“Thank you.  I’m sure it will be just as delicious as your Earl Grey.”

“It’s pretty good.”

“I can see that you’re very busy so I won’t keep you,” Hux said.  Kylo wasn’t sure if it was his ears or his heart that picked up on a tone of disappointment in Hux’s voice.  “I wanted to give you this back.” Hux placed “The Devil in Velvet” on the counter and pushed it over to Kylo.  

“Did you enjoy it?”

“I did.  I didn’t enjoy your little ‘gift,’” Hux remarked, “but it did make me think of you every time I picked up the book.”

Rose was still directing customers, Rey shouting out orders, and Finn was working extra hard to make drinks all on his own, but Kylo didn’t notice any of that.  His world was just Hux, and he wanted nothing more than to spend the rest of the day speaking with Hux about anything and everything. The thought that Hux had been thinking about him just as much as he’d been thinking about Hux only made that feeling even stronger.

However, the real world didn’t stay at bay for long and Kylo’s responsibilities soon came rushing back.  There was a busy coffee shop to run, a lunchtime rush to manage, and an ever growing backlog of orders to fill.  

“If you want to take another book before you leave, you can,” Kylo said with a smile.

“Are you a library or a coffee shop?  Do you let everyone take your books?”

“No,” Kylo answered honestly.  “But I thought we’d already established that you’re special.”

“So we did.”  A slight blush accompanying Hux’s smile, but it didn’t dull its radiance.  “I really should leave now, there’s quite a line building behind me.”

Kylo looked over at the four people that were impatiently waiting for their drinks and smiled at them apologetically.  “So there is. I’ll see you around sometime?” he hoped.

“I’m sure you will.”

Kylo quickly got to work on a medium sized caramel macchiato but kept one eye on Hux.  He didn’t stop for any milk or sugar as Kylo had expected, but he did take his time to look over the bookcase nearest the door.  It seemed that Hux was one of those people that looked with his fingers as much as his eyes, as he trailed his fingertips over the spines of the books as he looked at them.  Kylo had moved onto his next drink before Hux had made his choice, and he watched with a degree of sadness as Hux left the shop with another book tucked under his arm.

There wasn’t much time for sadness though as the shop remained busy for another ninety minutes.  It was hard to think of anything when Rey constantly shouted out orders and every other latte wanted to swap milk for soy.  Eventually, the lunchtime rush gave way to the mid-afternoon lull: a short respite before the post-work crowd came eager for one last caffeine fix to help them cope with their final commute of the day.

Finn took over the cash register, Rey was on drink making duty, and Rose had her sleeves rolled up as she tackled the mountain of washing-up that had accumulated over the lunch period.  It gave them all time to chat between customers, and Rey wasted no time in speaking to Kylo about Hux again.

“So,” she said, a wicked grin breaking out as she spoke, “Hux is special, is he?”

“Didn’t anyone ever tell you that it’s rude to eavesdrop on other people’s conversations?”

Rey ignored him.  “Did you give him the five dollars back?”

“Yeah, I hid it in the cardboard sleeve.  Remember, don’t take any tips from him.”

“It’s all so romantic,” Rey said dreamily.  “It’s like something out of a fairytale. He’s so cute, too!  You should ask him out on a date!”

“Rey—”

“Maybe we can even double date!  You and Hux, and me and Finn.”

“Rey,” Kylo replied with a false calmness, “shut the fuck up or I’ll put you on seven o’clock morning starts next week and Finn on all of the late shifts.”

“You know, if you had an active sex life you wouldn’t be so cranky.”

“Okay guys,” said Rose, interrupting what was no doubt going to turn into another Skywalker argument, “let’s all take a deep breath and relax.”

“Good idea, Rose,” Kylo agreed.  “If anyone wants to take their break, now is a good time.”

As Kylo expected, Rey was the first to put her hand in the air.  She always was the first to take her breaks and usually spent the time reviewing her college work while eating whatever food item had the highest sugar content.  Kylo knew how hard Rey worked on her _Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies_ course, and he didn’t begrudge her the occasional glazed donut.

“I’m sorry, Kylo,” Rey said as she helped herself to a double chocolate chunk brownie, “I don’t mean to tease you, but Hux obviously likes you back.  You really should ask him out.”

“Go and eat your brownie,” Kylo teased.

She was right; Kylo had begun to understand.  Although Hux still wanted to give that five dollars back, it had progressed beyond that for both of them. Next time, when Hux brings that new book back, Kylo would swallow his nerves and ask him out.

He could do that.


	2. Chapter 2

Hux came back the next day.

It was mid morning; too early for law students, too late for early morning commuters.  The type of crowd that Skywalker Coffee attracted at 10 a.m. on a Tuesday were the kind that bought one drink and then nursed it for hours as they read, banged away at their laptops or stared into the ether.  

The slow pace made it easy for the mind to wander.  Working the counter with Jess and her seemingly never ending stories of parties with a cast of characters that Kylo could never keep straight, didn’t help either.  If Jess noticed Kylo’s inattention she made no sign of it and just launched into her next story without pausing for breath. She’d just started a story about a car, a swimming pool and some drunken frat boys that was obviously not going to end well when the door opened, and there was Hux.

He looked amazing, as always.  Hux was wearing yet another dark-colored suit that highlighted his slim waist and long legs.  Kylo loved the suits, but he couldn’t help wondering if Hux had any casual clothes. What would Hux look like in a flattering pair of tight jeans?  Did he own any t-shirts that would show off the elegant neck that was always hidden behind a crisp shirt and perfectly executed Windsor knot? Did he have freckles?

Kylo’s own wardrobe was a sea of casual black and one crumpled navy suit that he hadn’t worn in five years.  He’d never particularly cared about his lack of style and had always felt comfortable in his goth meets heavy metal meets construction worker look, but it was hard not to feel underdressed next to Hux.  Hux’s world was custom made suits and shoes that shined until they were like mirrors. Kylo’s world was ripped jeans, faded band t-shirts and a coffee shop apron.

The confidence Kylo had built up the day before deserted him.  He couldn’t ask Hux out on a date. They lived in two different worlds.

It didn’t stop Kylo’s face from lighting up when Hux appeared though, and Jess definitely noticed that.  “Oh, is this the guy you’re sweet on?”

“He’s—  He’s become a regular, recently,” Kylo replied, deflecting the question.

“I understand,” Jess grinned.  “Go talk to him, I can look after the counter on my own for now.”

Kylo nodded, promising to come back and help if a sudden rush of customers came through the door.  Hux sat at the same sofa he had the week prior and he merely watched as Kylo approached him. He was smiling, and there seemed to be a softness to Hux’s eyes that Kylo hadn’t seen there before.  Soft was not a word that Kylo would usually think to use with Hux, but it certainly seemed to fit that moment.

“I came to tell you that although I really enjoyed your Darjeeling, your Earl Grey is better.”

Kylo was confused for the briefest of moments until he remembered that Hux had ordered the Darjeeling the day before.  Did he really come just to say that? “I said that you were an Earl Grey guy, didn’t I?”

“Yes, you did.  I bow to your amazing knowledge.”

“We have a couple of other blends too, if you want to try them.”

“Maybe next time,” Hux said.  Kylo’s heart flipped again at the idea of there being a next time.  “There was something else I wanted to talk to you about first.”

Kylo had a suspicion that he knew what this was about.  “The five dollars?”

“The five dollars,” Hux confirmed.

“I’m not going to accept it, no matter how many times you attempt to give it to me.  I’ve informed my staff not to accept it, either.”

“I’m beginning to realize that,” Hux replied.  “So, I have a compromise for you.”

“A compromise?”

“Yes.  A way for me to pay you back, but without you accepting my money.”

Kylo sat forward in his chair, his elbows resting on the table between them and his chin on his hands.  There was a sparkle in Hux’s pale green eyes that worried Kylo slightly, but he pushed that worry away. Hux was just an insurance salesman that had too many nice suits, there was nothing to worry about.  

“If I can’t pay for my drink here,” Hux said, “then let me buy one somewhere else.”

“Somewhere else?”

Hux’s voice, once firm and confident, was now beginning to sound a little nervous.  “Yes, somewhere like a bar or a restaurant.”

“Are you—”  Kylo could barely get his words out.  “Are you asking me out on a date?”

Hux paused, as if he was considering how to answer the question.  Finally, he spoke again. “Yes, I am.”

Kylo had always hoped that if a hot and charming guy ever asked him out on a date, that he’d be cool, calm and classy.  Maybe he’d wait a few seconds before replying, or he’d make a show of consulting his schedule first to make sure he had a free evening.  One thing he wouldn’t do, would answer immediately and shout his answer at his date.

Unfortunately, that’s exactly what he did.  

“Yes!” Kylo exclaimed, causing the old lady sat at the table next to them to drop her knitting.  He lowered his gaze to the table and flushed an alarming shade of red. “Sorry. But yes, I’d like to go out for drink with you.”

Hux’s expression was a mix of amused and relieved.  “I’m glad you agreed. When are you free?”

Kylo’s only commitments were the coffee shop and the gym, but he didn’t want to tell Hux that.  David Bowie’s “Rebel, Rebel” hit its first chorus as Kylo considered when would be a good time, and he decided to pick a day when he wasn’t scheduled to close the coffee shop.  He closed the shop most days, but Rey made him finish early one day each week and took care of the closing duties for him. Kylo usually headed to the gym for an intense exercise session with his knights on those days, but just this once, they could train without him.

“I’m free on Thursday evening, if you are?”

“Thursday will do quite nicely.  Do you know the Chandrila Plaza?”

Kylo had never been there, but he knew it.  The Chandrila Plaza was a five star hotel in downtown Seattle, only a ten minute walk from Elliott Bay.  The nightly rate for one of the rooms with a prime view of the bay was roughly the same as Kylo’s monthly rent, and the room was probably bigger than his shoebox of an apartment.  It was not a world he’d ever stepped into, and he wasn’t sure he’d be comfortable there.

He’d try it though, if Hux wanted to.  “I know it.”

“There’s a very nice bar on the first floor that overlooks the bay.  I like to go there and relax, sometimes. We could meet there.”

“Sounds good.”  Kylo wondered if he had any clothes that would be suitable, or if he’d have to try and dig out that sole suit he had and hope it was still salvageable.  “Is six o’clock good?”

“Six o’clock is perfect, Kylo.  Here, let me give you my phone number, just in case either of us need to change the arrangements.”

Hux had a pen, but Kylo had nothing to write his number on.  Kylo’s phone—recently bought and with a new number Kylo couldn’t remember—was safely stashed away in his locker and he’d left his notepad behind the counter.  He was about to stand up and grab a Skywalker Coffee napkin as a substitute for actual paper when Hux grabbed him by the wrist.

Hux’s grip was tight but not painful, and it was enough to make Kylo settle back into his chair.  When Hux pulled Kylo followed, and soon enough Hux had Kylo’s hand exactly where he wanted it—a few scant inches from his face.  Kylo forgot to breathe when Hux began to write his number on the back of Kylo’s hand. He could feel every drag of the pen as it flowed across his skin.  

It was strangely intimate to have all of Hux’s attention concentrated on such a mundane patch of skin and Kylo couldn’t stop his mind from running away from him.  Would Hux concentrate on other patches of skin with the same level of intensity? How would it feel if it was Hux’s fingers tracing patterns on his skin instead of a pen?

When Hux finished, he pulled Kylo’s hand even closer to his face and blew gently on the ink to make sure that it didn’t smudge.  The feel of Hux’s hot breath on his skin sent a shiver down Kylo’s spine.

“There you go,” Hux said, letting go of Kylo’s hand with what seemed to be a small degree of reluctance, “if you need me, you can send me a text.  Please text me your number when you can.”

Kylo nodded.  “I will.”

“Unfortunately, I must be going now.  Duty calls.”

“Right, people always need insurance.”

Hux coughed.  “Yes. Until Thursday?”

“I’m looking forward to it.”

Hux smiled.  “As am I. Goodbye, Kylo.”

Kylo took a couple of extra minutes after Hux left before returning to work. He remained seated at their table and waited for his heart rate to return to normal.  Even his fiercest workouts didn’t cause his heart to pound in his chest this way, and he took a few deep breaths to try and calm himself down.  

After all of that stress, he hadn’t needed to ask Hux out.  Hux had asked _him_.  Hux, with his perfectly styled hair and manicured nails had asked Kylo, with his ratty jeans and the jagged nails he bit too much, out on a date.  He was taking Kylo to a five star hotel for _drinks_.  

Kylo looked down at his hand and the fresh phone number that was still there.  Maybe it was because he was writing on skin, but Hux’s handwriting wasn’t as elegant as Kylo had expected it to be.  But, Hux had marked him, and Kylo liked it. He wanted to wear that phone number on his hand all day—hygiene standards be damned—and every time he looked at it, he’d think of Hux and the look on concentration on his face as he’d taken his time writing those ten digits.

Hearing Jess humming along to Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run” reminded Kylo that he’d left her to look after the shop on her own, and although it was still quiet, he felt bad for just sitting there while she was hard at work.  He reluctantly stood up and walked over to the counter, still feeling slightly dazed from the conversation with Hux.

“That looked promising!” Jess said, teasingly.

“I have a date.” 

Jess squealed, earning angry looks from a few customers.  “When? Where? Give me all of the details! Is that his phone number on your hand?”

“Yeah, we’re going out on Thursday.”

“I’m so happy for you.  You deserve some happiness in your life.”  She did look genuinely happy for him, Kylo thought.  

“Thank you.  I’m going to write this phone number down, and wash my hand.”  He didn’t want to wash the ink off his hand, but reality had reared its ugly head and Kylo knew he had no choice.

“Sure thing, boss.  Rey will be here for her shift soon, please let me be the one to tell her about your man coming in.”

_Your man_.  Kylo liked the sound of that.  “Sure.”

Kylo went to the staff room and opened his locker so that he could get his phone.  He entered Hux’s name and number with shaking hands, and then opened the camera app.  It took a few tries, but he eventually managed to get a well-lit, non-blurry photo of the writing on his hand.  Maybe it was stupid of him to immortalize it in a photograph—Kylo Ren had never been one for sentimentality—but he didn’t want to lose it forever.  At least this way, when he scrubbed off the ink, it didn’t hurt as much as it might have done.

As Kylo scrubbed and scrubbed, all he could think was _I have a date._

**

It was 5:45 p.m. when Kylo pulled onto the large car park next to the Chandrila Plaza.  He was early for his date with Hux, but he would have been even earlier if he hadn’t spent the last fifteen minutes driving around the block.  Kylo had never been this early for anything in his life. He’d also never been this nervous about anything in his life.

His classic 1977 Pontiac Firebird—originally his father’s and now the albatross around Kylo’s neck—looked out of place next to all of the sports cars and executive cars that made up the rest of the car park.  The hotel even had a _fleet_ of chocolate brown Rolls Royces on hand to ferry its guests around.  Kylo put The Falcon in park, took a deep breath, and wondered if he was making a mistake.

If Kylo was honest with himself, he’d been wondering that for a while now. He’d ridden the high of having a date through the hours that followed Hux asking him out.  When Rey had dragged him clothes shopping before their shift started the next day, he was still smiling.  Even when she convinced him to buy a pair of smart slacks, a nice collared shirt and a matching tie that added up to more money than he’d ever spent on clothes before, he still smiled. 

It had been a few hours into his shift—his new purchases safely stashed away in his car—that the high had started to wear off.  A customer had tripped and spilt their iced black coffee all over Kylo. It even managed to get into his hair, somehow. Before he had chance to clean himself up properly a delivery arrived, but as it was missing half of the order Kylo spent an hour on the phone trying to complain.  Once that had been dealt with, he’d walked back into the coffee shop only to be accosted by a customer that was adamant that they’d been given the wrong drink and was shouting for a refund.

By the end of his shift, Kylo had been frustrated, dirty and angry.  He’d sat down at a table in the middle of the coffee shop, looked at his coffee stained apron and felt like destroying everything.  It had been a long time since Kylo had felt pure rage prickling underneath his skin. He’d thought he’d left that behind when he left New York.  He’d refused to allow it to consume him, however, and had practiced the deep breathing techniques that Uncle Luke had taught him. Surprisingly, they worked.

With the memories of that rage fresh in his mind, the rest of the night had been a bad one.  The fancy clothes that had once signified his excitement at having a date with Hux became an expense he couldn’t afford.  He’d been full of confidence when he’d tried them on in the store and had been content that he looked good in them. But, as he threw the bags onto his threadbare couch after arriving home, he couldn’t bare to look at them again.  What had he been thinking? It would take more than smart, expensive clothes to make him suitable for a man like Hux.

He’d nearly canceled the date there and then.  

He didn’t, however, and instead he had spent his early Thursday shift listening to Rey giving him advice whenever she had chance.  Kylo had begun dating while Rey was still in elementary school, but she still insisted on giving him the benefits of her so-called wisdom.  It was sweet in a way, but it hadn’t helped with his nerves.

Now here he was, in the expensive clothes he no longer felt comfortable in, nervously tapping an unknown rhythm on his steering wheel.  The clock on his dash read five minutes to six and he realized he’d been staring out of the windshield and internally panicking for ten minutes.  It was getting close to that time where he’d have to make a choice; go to Hux, or go home.

Kylo knew this would be the only chance he’d get with Hux.  If he went home now, Hux wouldn’t ask him out again. Maybe, he’d never even see Hux again.  Kylo could go home to his Netflix watchlist and the dumbbells in the corner of his room, or he could go inside the hotel and try to add something different into his routine and boring life.  

He could try and add _Hux_ into his life.

Ultimately, it was that thought that made him open his car door and head inside the hotel.  He wanted to see Hux smile again. He wanted to learn about the other man and what made him tick.  He wanted to see Hux wearing something other than one of his suits one day and find out what he drank other than tea.  He wanted more than that from Hux of course—a lot more—but it was the mundane that was driving his feet forward instead of anything they could do behind closed doors.

The lobby of the Chandrila Plaza was dominated by a water feature that stretched three stories high.  It had been designed to draw the eye, and it certainly did that. The rest of the lobby was decorated in decadent marble in various shades of brown, and there were several seating areas full of neutral colored sofas scattered around.  It took far too long for Kylo to locate any kind of directions, but he finally found a sign that showed that the bar was the other side of the fountain.

The bar wasn’t as ostentatious as the lobby.  The walls were all paneled with different types of wood in various shades of brown, and it was well lit by low hanging light shades made of out of misshapen glass.  It looked comfortable and welcoming, but there were enough design quirks scattered around to remind the clientele that they were still in a five star hotel.

As Kylo walked inside, he was greeted by a member of staff.  The guy’s uniform—with his neatly pressed slacks with a crease down the middle so sharp Kylo could probably cut his finger—made Kylo feel self-conscious about his own, worn straight out of the bag purchases.  He did nothing but smile at Kylo though, his gloved white hands welcoming Kylo into the bar. The bartender was there to help, and as Kylo didn’t want to wander through the bar looking lost, he decided to ask for assistance.

“I’m meeting someone here.”

The bartender smiled, eager to be of help in anyway.  “Certainly, sir. May I ask the name of who you are meeting?  If they are a guest of the hotel or a regular, I may be able to direct you to their table.”

Kylo hoped that the monosyllabic name he’d been given was the same name that his date used with everyone.  “His name is Hux.”

There was a slight and puzzling shift in the bartender’s expression.  The smile slipped to be replaced by a look that Kylo couldn’t quite define, and it left Kylo wondering what he’d said wrong.  He didn’t know how these hotels worked. Had he not been polite enough in his request? Should he have handed over a tip as he asked?

A few moments later and the smile was back as if it had always been there. “Mr. Hux is seated in the far corner,” the bartender said, gesturing to a corner by the full length windows that overlooked the bay.  “If you want to order a drink now, I will bring it over shortly.”

It probably wasn’t a good idea for Kylo to drink—he was that dangerous combination of being a belligerent drunk and someone who couldn’t hold his alcohol—but he found himself ordering an overpriced whiskey anyway. He could just nurse it for however long this date would last.

Hux was exactly where the bartender said he would be, relaxing into the plush leather of a booth that could seat six.  It was one of those booths that was in the shape of a circle—built for a group of friends to talk over each other as they spent an enjoyable night together.  Hux looked comfortable there, like a King surveying his kingdom. Kylo concentrated on not tripping over his feet as he came closer.

“Kylo,” Hux said, rising to his feet to greet his guest, “it’s good to see you in something other than that apron.”

Kylo glanced down at the navy tie that Rey had paired with a shirt of a lighter shade of blue.  He really only ever wore black; blue was his idea of a compromise. “I wanted to wear the apron but was worried they’d throw me out.”

“That’s highly possible,” Hux said with a laugh.  “Nobody would dare throw you out while you look this good, though.”

Kylo could feel his cheeks heating up.  That seemed to happen quite frequently around Hux.

“Oh, where are my manners.  Please, take a seat, Kylo.”

Hux retook his same seat as before, right in the middle of the curved booth. Kylo had no choice but to sit next to him, choosing Hux’s left hand side, and tried to keep an appropriate amount of space between them.  He didn’t want to sit too far away, but he didn’t want to be too close either. Kylo’s whiskey arrived shortly after he sat down and Kylo took a long sip, enjoying the burn as it flowed down his throat.

“You said that you come here often?” Kylo asked, only realizing how much his question sounded like a bad chat-up line when Hux smirked.

“Most bars tend to be quite noisy, but I find it to be very relaxing here.  Plus, the view is beautiful.”

From where they were seated, the view across Elliot Bay was spectacular. It was already dark outside and Kylo’s eyes were instantly drawn to the bright lights of the Seattle Great Wheel.  The neon colors of the ferris wheel painted the water around it with equally bright shades and it was easy to understand why Hux liked it so much.  

Kylo pulled his eyes away from the bay and refocused on Hux.  He’d rather look at Hux, anyway. “It’s very beautiful.”

Hux coughed.  “Have you eaten yet, Kylo?  They only serve light meals, but they’re of a high quality.”

Kylo hadn’t and he doubted he’d be able to choke anything down, but he still accepted the menu when Hux passed it over.  Maybe picking at a salad would help distract him from how nervous he felt.

**

Instead of his salad, they ordered a variety of bar food with the intention of sharing.  It was a world away from the onion rings and dry chicken nuggets that Kylo was used to, but he enjoyed it nonetheless.  The bar’s speciality was seafood—something Kylo was not the biggest fan of—but he ate the crab toast and oysters with the same relish that Hux did.

As they ate, they talked.  Hux was an attentive listener who never seemed to bore of Kylo’s coffee shop tales.  Each story was met with smiles and questions that were designed to get every detail from Kylo, and Kylo was amazed at how easy it had all become.  His nerves were still there, just bubbling beneath the surface, but they didn’t seem to matter as much anymore. Hux wanted to hear what he had to say.  He wouldn't allow his nerves to control him.

“Was that your dream as a child?  To take over the coffee shop?”

“I never wanted to take over,” Kylo answered honestly.  “That was the last thing I wanted.”

“What did you want to do?”

“I never really had a plan, or a direction.  I was a terrible kid. I skipped school, I caused trouble, and I left home as soon as I was old enough.  I went to New York and did nothing with my life for years.”

“What made you come back to Seattle?”

“I just woke up one day and knew that my life should be better,” Kylo answered.  He didn’t know why he was telling Hux any of this, but now that he’d started he couldn’t stop.  “My mother quit the coffee shop shortly after I left as she’d never wanted to run it either, but my uncle was in charge when I came back.  He was kind enough to offer me a job. I didn’t want to take it, but I felt that I owed it to my family.”

Hux was silent for a few moments as he let Kylo’s words sink in.  Kylo hoped that he hadn’t scared Hux away with what he’d said, especially as he’d told Hux the sanitized version of his wayward youth.  He’d purposely skipped over the petty crimes, the broken bones (most of them not his) and the nights he’d lost in a haze of whatever he could afford from his dealer.  The job offer from uncle Luke really had been a lifeline in the dark for Kylo, and he’d clung to it dearly.

“Is that why you took over the shop?  Through obligation?”

“Luke is a philosophy lecturer and he wanted to go back to that, so—”

“Because I don’t believe that,” Hux said, interrupting whatever Kylo was about to say.  “When you talk about Skywalker Coffee, you do so with pride and happiness. Maybe you started working there through obligation, but I don’t think that it’s obligation anymore.  I think you have every right to be proud of yourself, Kylo.”

“You do?”

“So many people find themselves in situations they don’t want to be in, but not everyone is able to pull themselves out of it.  You not only did that, but you went back to your family, as well. That was very brave of you.”

Hux’s eyes fixed on the table before them as he spoke, and Kylo had the distinct impression that Hux was talking about something more than just Kylo’s life decisions.  He didn’t push, however, and instead allowed himself to take Hux’s kind words to heart. Moving back to Seattle really had been the hardest thing he’d ever done, and he knew that he should be proud of himself for taking that step.

He hoped that if Anakin could see him now, that he’d be proud, too.

“Thank you, Hux.  It means a lot to me to hear you say that.”

“Why is that?”

“Well, look at you,” stammered Kylo, a hand waving frantically in Hux’s direction, “you’re so well put together.”

Hux shook his head.  “Appearances can be deceiving, Kylo.  I might be successful at what I do, but you’re a better man than I am.”

“What makes you say that?  What is your story, Hux? I’ve told you so much about me, but I still don’t know anything about you.  Was insurance always the dream when you were a kid? How did you end up in Seattle?”

Hux finished off his Scotch before replying.  “I’m from London originally, but after my mother passed away I came to America with my father.  He had a job opportunity here and wanted a fresh start. I was about ten-years-old. I came to Seattle when I was about nineteen.”

“I’m sorry about your mother,” Kylo said, feeling awkward for raising the subject.

“It’s fine.  I didn’t have many friends in London—only bad memories—so I was happy to move.  I didn’t plan on becoming an insurance salesman, but circumstances led me to it.”

“What circumstances were those?”

Hux opened his mouth as if he was going to answer, but then seemed to think better of it.  He stared out across the bay as the lights on the ferris wheel changed from blue to pink. When his cool green eyes fell on Kylo again, they were lacking the spark that had been in them throughout the evening so far.  “Boring circumstances. A job here, a connection there…. I can’t even remember most of it.”

“You always say that your job is boring, so why do you still do it?”

“It’s like I said earlier, Kylo.  Not everyone is able to, or brave enough, to change their circumstances.  You think that I’m well put together? Well, I could say the same about you.”

In the few short meetings they had had prior to today, Hux had always carried himself with an enviable level of confidence.  Sure, there were a couple of occasions where he had become a little embarrassed or flustered when Kylo flirted back, but Hux had always been confident in himself.  To hear a man that had more expensive suits than Kylo had clean underwear sound impressed by what Kylo had achieved was hard to understand.

“I’m a disaster area,” Kylo insisted.  “I spent yesterday trying to get coffee out of my hair.”

“How did you get coffee in your hair?”

“A customer fell over, his cup flew into the air and I ended up wearing the contents.”

“Is it easy to get coffee out of you hair?” Hux asked, his question genuine but also full of amusement.  Kylo was glad to see that the spark was back in Hux’s eyes.

“It is if you can shower,” Kylo explained, “but I had another four hours of my shift left.  Thankfully I had my hair tied up as always, so only a bit got wet.”

“Hmm, I think this is the first time I’ve seen you with your hair down,” Hux murmured.  “I like it. May I?”

Kylo didn’t know what Hux was asking of him, but he soon found out when Hux touched his elegant fingers to his hair.  Hux’s action was tentative at first, just the tips of his fingers brushing against the ends that fell past Kylo’s chin.  When Kylo didn’t bat the fingers away, Hux grew bolder and ran his hand through Kylo’s bangs properly, his thumb briefly stroking Kylo’s cheek as he did so.

“It’s softer than I expected,” Hux said, his fingers still playing with the ends of Kylo’s hair.  “Is this okay?”

“Yes.”

“You can touch me too, if you want.”

Kylo was distinctly aware that they were still seated in the bar of a five star hotel.  There was a low level of chatter around them and a pianist was playing a piano that Kylo couldn’t see.  He wanted to give into the hand that was running through his hair and chase a firmer touch, one that was firmly against his skin instead of just occasionally brushing against it.  But he couldn’t do it here.

“Not in this bar, I can’t,” Kylo said, before adding, “at least, not how I want to.”

Hux quirked an eyebrow at Kylo’s boldness, and his smile turned into something slightly darker.  “I have a room.”

Was— Was Hux suggesting what Kylo thought he was suggesting?  Had he booked a room with the intention of inviting Kylo upstairs, if the opportunity arose?  Kylo was finding it hard to think. This was all happening so fast. He’d been so convinced that the night would be a disaster, but instead the hottest man he’d ever met had just invited him to his hotel room.

Kylo’s surprise and confusion must have been evident on his face, as Hux quickly tried to clarify his comment.  “Don’t think that I was being presumptuous when I booked the room; I always have a room on standby here. I often invite business partners to my room.  Oh, but not like— It’s a suite. I have meetings there,” Hux paused and smiled in a way that made Kylo’s stomach flip. “I’m not explaining this very well.”

“It’s okay.”  And it really was, Kylo thought.  The way Hux became more and more flustered as he’d tried to explain was unbearably cute.

Hux took a deep breath.  “I have a suite here because sometimes it’s better to meet business partners here, than in the office.  I don’t make a habit of inviting people to my suite for reasons other than business.”

“But my invite isn’t for business?”

“No, it isn’t,” Hux clarified.  “I can understand if you don’t want to, or if you think this is all too fast.”

It was fast.  Even when Kylo had still been riding the initial high of having a date with Hux, his wildest dreams hadn’t led him to Hux’s hotel room.  He’d hoped for a kiss, maybe some wandering hands or a subtle roll of hips against hips, but he hadn’t dreamed of anything more. Beautiful men just did not make offers like this to Kylo, not unless they were so drunk that Kylo’s sense of decency wouldn’t allow him to take them up on the offer.  

But, Hux wasn’t drunk.

“I want to,” Kylo answered.  “I’m just surprised that you do.”

“I’ve been thinking about it since the first day we met.”

Kylo wished that he could think of something suave and sexy to say, but all that he could do was mutter in disbelief.  “You have?”

Hux nodded.  “Shall we go upstairs?”

“Okay,” Kylo agreed, still not quite believing what was happening.  He looked at the empty glasses and plates that covered their table. “Shouldn’t we pay for all of this, first?”

Hux stood up and slid out of the booth.  “It’s all been charged to my room; I’ll take care of it.”

“This is going to cost a lot more than five dollars, let me—”

Hux rolled his eyes and smiled.  “Please, let’s not start that again.  I will pay for it, and you will follow me to my suite.”

Kylo found that he had no words left to argue with.

**

The hotel only had ten floors, and Hux’s suite was on the ninth.  Kylo was thankful that the elevator ride was swift and short, as it was spent in an awkward silence.  Kylo almost reached out to Hux so many times during those too few seconds in the elevator, but each time he stopped himself. Hux had said that he could touch, but Kylo still found it hard to believe that he could. He hoped that it would be easier when they were behind the closed and private doors of Hux’s suite.

Kylo wanted to see the suite, too.  He’d stayed in a few nice hotels when he’d been too young to appreciate them and he wondered if Hux’s suite would share the opulence of the hotel lobby or be more relaxed like the hotel bar.  The hallway that led to Hux’s suite was understated like the bar, but understated in a way that still made it look expensive. Kylo fell in line behind Hux as he led the way, his new dress shoes sinking into the plush carpet with every step.

Kylo’s first glimpse of the suite was of neutral colors and an open plan living and dining room that was surrounded by spectacular views of Elliot Bay and Puget Sound.  A glimpse was all he got, however, for as soon as the heavy door clicked shut behind him, Hux was on him.

Hux grabbed him by the tie and used the thin strip of blue silk to pull Kylo close.  Kylo had just enough time to see Hux’s lips briefly rise into a smirk before they were pressed against his.  The nerves and panic that Hux had fleetingly shown in the bar were long gone now and Kylo found himself melting into the nips and licks Hux lay across his mouth.  Hux seemed to know exactly what he wanted from him and Kylo was in no mood to argue, allowing Hux to run his tongue over Kylo’s uneven teeth.

The hard wood of the door pressed against his back and the hot body of Hux pressed against his front.  Hux was surprisingly strong, his hips keeping Kylo in place with more force than Kylo expected. He could have reversed their positions if he wanted to, but there was something about being thrown against a door and having the breath kissed out of him that appealed to Kylo in a way he didn’t want to address.

He wasn’t going to be completely passive, though.  He ran his hands down Hux’s back, his fingers gliding smoothly over the smooth wool of Hux’s expensive suit jacket.  His left hand remained in the small of Hux’s back and he used it to pull Hux even closer. His right hand, however, kept moving south until there was no jacket left to touch and it was replaced by expertly fitted slacks.  Hux groaned into his mouth when Kylo squeezed his ass so he did it again and again.

“You are wearing entirely too many clothes,” Hux murmured against Kylo’s lips.

Kylo’s chuckles gave way to gasps when Hux nibbled on his ear.  “So are you.”

Hux grunted, his hands coming to rest on Kylo’s chest for a brief moment before tackling the front of Kylo’s shirt.  Hux didn’t waste time on removing Kylo’s tie; instead he just tore at the buttons, the buttonholes still a little stiff with lack of use.  The second Kylo’s torso was bare—his chest steadily rising with deep breaths—Hux’s hands were everywhere, tracing his ab muscles, palming his chest and pinching his nipples.

Soon, Hux’s hands traveled lower, his nails scraping through the line of hair that led below Kylo’s belt.  Hux unfastened this with experienced fingers and slipped his hand past the waistband of Kylo’s briefs to find his rapidly hardening cock.  All it took was one stroke for Kylo’s hips to buck away from the door and chase that touch, but Hux pushed him back with a firm bump of his shoulder and a long lick up Kylo’s neck.

“It’s okay,” Hux purred, taking hold of Kylo’s tie again with his left hand.  

Kylo briefly wondered what he must look like to Hux right now.  His dick was out, his pants were hanging off his hips at the front, his shirt was open and barely tucked into his pants in places, and he was pretty sure that Hux had ruined the neat knot of his tie.  By contrast, Hux was still perfectly put together without an item of clothing out of place.

But, maybe that wasn’t entirely true.  Hux’s face was flushed red, his green eyes blown black, and a few strands of hair had fallen loose and were sticking to Hux’s forehead.  This was not the calm and composed Hux that Kylo was used to dealing with—this Hux looked predatory, dangerous and hot as hell.

“What do you want, Kylo?”

It was hard to think while Hux was stroking his cock and leaving sloppy kisses all over his neck.  Maybe that was why Kylo’s answer was dumb, but honest. “You.”

“I can tell that you want me,” Hux said.  Kylo could feel Hux’s smile against his neck.  “But, I was hoping for something a little more specific.”

It was hard to be specific when the only answer running through his addled brain was _everything_.  Eventually he responded, “Why don’t we go to the bedroom?” 

Hux took a step back, looked at Kylo and licked his lips.  “Good start. Shoes off, please.”

Hux stepped out of his expensive loafers and walked through the dining room to what Kylo assumed was the bedroom.  It took Kylo a little longer to undo the knots on his lace-up dress shoes and he nearly fell flat on his face due to treading on his trailing pants legs.  He was slightly miffed that Hux had just walked away and left him, but a few extra moments to catch his breath and straighten his clothing slightly was welcomed.  He wanted to walk into that bedroom with a confidence and suaveness that he didn’t feel, and didn’t think that was possible while his dick was still hanging out of his briefs and his tie was half choking him.  

A king size bed, with a dark wooden frame and a pile of pillows you could get lost in dominated the bedroom.  Hux was busy putting his jacket into a garment bag—something Kylo had never owned in his life—but greeted Kylo with a soft smile.  Hux had removed his tie and was halfway through unfastening his shirt before Kylo realized that maybe, he should be helping.

Hux was slim and pale, with a soft stomach and perky pink nipples that quickly stiffened as soon as Kylo put his mouth to them.  Hux was sensitive there it seemed, if the string of moans that flowed from his mouth were any sign. Both shirts soon fell to the floor, along with Kylo’s tie, and they scrambled to be the first to unfasten the other’s pants.

The bed was soft under Kylo’s knees when he straddled Hux.  Hux looked simply decadent lying there, his head and back supported by a pile of plush pillows and with a lazy smirk on his face.  Kylo leaned down to press messy kisses along his jawline and thankfully Hux didn’t seem to mind when Kylo’s nose jabbed him in the cheek.  Hux’s hands were in his hair again, holding tightly onto the curls Kylo hated as he tried to pull Kylo’s mouth nearer to his own. Kylo went as directed, dipping his tongue into Hux’s mouth before sucking on Hux’s kiss swollen lips.

“We’re in the bedroom,” Hux said huskily into Kylo’s ear, “did you decide what else you wanted?”

Kylo sat back on his heels by Hux’s side and looked over Hux.  A flush was starting to spread down Hux’s pale chest, and the hard line of his dick was easy to see through his well fitted underwear.  Kylo wanted to do so much, but when he saw the lubricant and condoms sitting innocently on the table next to the bed, he had only one answer.

“I want to fuck you,” Kylo replied, before quickly adding, “if that’s okay.”

Hux smirked again.  “That is more than okay, as long as I can return the favor.”

“You— You want to do that?”

“Of course I do,” Hux said.  His smile was something entirely different now; something pure, genuine and sweet.  “But why don’t you take care of me first?”

Hux hooked his thumbs into the waistband of his briefs and pulled them down, his hard cock spilling out to lie across his stomach.  Kylo watched with rapt attention when Hux raised his legs so that he could pull them over his slim thighs before kicking them off with a confident flick of his legs.  He put his legs back down, spreading them open with a slow shyness that Kylo couldn’t decide whether was real or fake.

“Well, what are you waiting for, Kylo?”

Definitely fake.  

Kylo trailed a hand over Hux’s smooth thighs and reached for the lube and condoms with the other.  “I thought that you didn’t want to be presumptuous,” he said, of the already prepared supplies.

“I wasn’t being presumptuous,” Hux insisted, “if I didn’t use the lube with you, then I’d use it on myself.”

Many delicious scenarios flew through Kylo’s mind  “Maybe you can show me that, one day.”

“Maybe I will.  But for now….”

Kylo took the hint.  It was surprisingly difficult to open the lube without dropping it when Hux was staring at his fingers like they were lunch and he was hungry, but somehow Kylo managed it.  He wanted to tease Hux a little first; he wanted to leave bites over his thighs and trace circles around his rim, but when Hux gave his own cock a few strokes and tilted his hips higher, Kylo knew he didn’t have the patience to tease.  Not this time.

Hux was hot and tight, and his lips were begging to be kissed, so Kylo did exactly that.  Hux hummed in contentment against Kylo’s mouth as Kylo stretched him. It had been too long since Kylo had gone to bed with anyone and every positive reaction Hux gave him helped to rebuild his shattered confidence.  And Hux was genuine in his reactions, too. Now that they’d confirmed their interest in each other and had had a taste, Hux seemed to have no trouble letting go. Kylo both envied that, and wanted to emulate it.

“Your fingers are so thick,” Hux blurted out after Kylo pushed a second finger in.  “They feel so good.”

Kylo curled them up, brushing against Hux’s prostate.  “We’re not finished yet.”

“Maybe you should pick up the pace then.”

“You’re not used to being kept waiting, are you?” Kylo asked, amused at how Hux was trying to sound impatient, but instead was only sounding desperate.

“You have no idea,” Hux replied.  “I’ve killed men for less.”

Kylo laughed at the obvious exaggeration.

One more finger and several frustrated huffs from Hux later, and Kylo considered Hux ready to go.  His hands shook slightly as he ripped open the condom packet, but thankfully Hux didn’t seem to notice.  Instead, Hux was too busy trying to pull Kylo’s underwear off, something that Kylo was all too happy to help him with.  Hux didn’t help him with the condom though; he just lay back and watched, biting his lip as Kylo rolled the rubber down his shaft.

“Hmm, you’ll do quite nicely,” Hux said approvingly.

“I’m glad you think so.”

Kylo kept his eyes fixed on Hux’s face when he entered him.  He was transfixed by the way Hux’s long, red eyelashes fluttered as his eyes closed and then sluggishly reopened, revealing hazy eyes that only had the smallest sliver of green left.  If Hux had been gorgeous while fully dressed and composed under the lights of the bar, then he was spectacular with sweat slicked skin and passion mussed hair in the soft lights of the bedroom.  Kylo wanted to take a photo of how Hux looked and frame it.

Hux lifted his knees and hooked his legs around Kylo’s sides, his feet coming to rest below Kylo’s ass.  It changed the angle slightly and allowed Kylo to sink in deeper, something they both seemed to appreciate.  Kylo loved that Hux wasn’t afraid to take what he wanted, whether that meant saying it verbally or with his body.  Kylo had always—even in his troubled youth when he hated everyone and everything—thrived on praise, and every gasped encouragement from Hux just inspired him even more.

Kylo changed his angle slightly and was rewarded with a guttural groan from Hux and a sharp tug at his hair.  “Ah—Right there,” Hux gasped, “that’s it. Fuck, Kylo.”

Kylo started to feel himself coming undone.  It had been too long since he’d been with anyone and Hux was just too hot.  He reached between them and took Hux’s cock in hand, his thumb brushing over the head and coming away slick.  Hux buried his head into the crook of Kylo’s neck, his hot breath dancing across Kylo’s collarbones as his right hand came to join Kylo’s. They worked Hux’s cock together, their fingers connecting as tightly as their bodies.

It was all too breathtaking.  From the extravagance of the suite around them with its beautiful views of Elliot Bay, the 800 thread count Egyptian cotton sheets that they were currently rolling around on, to the date itself.  Kylo had never expected to find himself here, balls deep inside a man that he knew he wasn’t good enough for. And wasn’t Hux just the most breathtaking aspect of it all?

When Kylo came it was with an intensity that he hadn’t felt in years and it was accompanied by a breathless whisper of Hux’s name.  He didn’t stop moving though, he rode out his orgasm and concentrated his efforts on the man beneath him and the cock in his hand. When Hux came, it was with a loud call of Kylo’s name and a bite to Kylo’s shoulder that he was pretty certain would bruise tomorrow.

Kylo flopped to Hux’s side, his limbs feeling heavy and loose as his heart rate slowly returned back to normal.  He pulled off the condom, tied it in a neat knot and dumped it on the side table next to the lube and unused condoms.  He’d move it later, when he had the energy. 

Hux didn’t seem to be faring any better.  He sprawled out on the bed, his legs wide and bent at the knee.  He was staring at the ceiling, but Kylo was pretty certain that a satisfied smile was starting to breakout across Hux’s reddened lips.  That smile was enough to settle the lingering nerves Kylo had and he reached out to Hux, draping an arm across his stomach.

“Are you okay?” Kylo asked.

“Yes, you’ll definitely do,” Hux replied.  He turned his head to look at Kylo and Kylo knew that he couldn’t look anywhere else.  “That was just what I needed.”

“It was good?”

Hux rolled onto his side so that he was facing Kylo fully.  His come still decorated his stomach, but Hux didn’t seem to care.  He ran a hand through Kylo’s hair before placing it on Kylo’s face. Hux looked so open to him right now and it seemed far more intimate than any part of the sex had.  

“It was very good.  Did you enjoy it?”

“Yes,” Kylo answered quickly.  “I’m glad I gave you that cup of tea and refused to take your money.”

Hux laughed.  “So am I.”

They kissed.  It was an innocent press of lips against lips and not the type of kiss Kylo usually shared with his hook-ups after they’d had sex.  Then again, Hux had never been a hook-up or a one night stand to him, had he? Kylo had never looked at Hux in those terms, and he wasn’t going to start now, either.  Now that he’d had one night with Hux—one wonderful night where they’d talked and had amazing sex—he knew that wanted to do it all again and again. He wanted to tell Hux more boring coffee shop stories and hear whatever Hux wanted to tell him in return.  He wanted to explore every inch of Hux’s body and do everything Hux was willing to do with him.

Did Hux want that, though?

“I’m going to clean up,” Hux said, gesturing to his stomach.

Kylo nodded in agreement and was grateful when Hux picked up the used condom and disposed of it.  He lay there, on that too comfortable bed, listening to Hux shuffling around in the bathroom. The faucet turned on and off, a cupboard opened and shut, and Kylo barely dared to breathe.  He just lay there, on top of the sheets, stark naked and with his soft cock on his thigh. Would Hux kick him out? Should he be getting dressed and leaving? 

When Hux came back he was clean, radiant, and didn’t seem at all surprised that Kylo was still just lying there.  That was a good sign, wasn’t it? Hux went around the bedroom picking up the discarded parts of their suits, while Kylo did his best to not just stare at his bare ass.  Hux didn’t hand any of Kylo’s clothes back to him, but neither did he address him.

Kylo took a deep breath, and asked the question he dreaded.  “Do you want me to leave?”

Hux stood up and placed his hands on his slim hips.  “Why would I want that?”

“I just wondered—”

Hux sat down on the bed next to Kylo and leaned down until their noses nearly touched.  “I’m happy for you to stay if you want to, Kylo.”

“I want to.”“Then it’s settled,” Hux replied, leaning down to place a kiss on Kylo’s nose. “Besides, as a law abiding citizen, I couldn’t in good conscience allow you to drive home after drinking earlier.”

That was a stretch Kylo knew, and the smile on Hux’s face showed that he knew it was too.  Kylo had only ordered one whiskey and he’d never even finished it, but if Hux wanted to tease then Kylo was willing to play along.

“You’re right.  I’m in no fit state to leave.  I’ll have to stay.”

Hux crawled over Kylo, turned back the sheets and settled into the other side of the bed.  Kylo clambered under the covers with decidedly less grace, but was pleased when Hux cuddled up to him and tucked his head beneath Kylo’s chin.  Hux’s red hair was soft and had a slight scent of coconut, and Kylo couldn’t resist leaving a kiss on his temple.

“I’d love to talk some more, but for some reason I can barely keep my eyes open,” Hux said, teasingly.  “Can you turn the light off?”

It was a stretch with a sleepy Hux on his chest, but Kylo was able to reach over and flick the light switches by the bed, leaving the bedroom in darkness.  Hux fell asleep almost immediately but Kylo lay there for a few moments, cataloguing the events of the night in the hope of never forgetting them. 

When he did fall asleep, it was with a smile.

**

Kylo woke up to the feel of a hand in his hair and soft kisses being showered across his face.

“Good morning,” Hux said in a voice that was far too perky for how early it seemed to be.  “Sorry to wake you, but I didn’t know if you had to work or not today. I don’t want you to be late.”

Kylo’s response was more sleep slurred than spoken.  “S’all right. What time is it?”

“It’s 6 a.m.”

Kylo’s eyes remained shut and he could feel himself drifting off to sleep again.  It was so relaxing to lie there, with the warmth of another body by his side, fingers carding through his hair and gentle kisses being placed upon his brow.  It had been a long time since he’d felt so secure and at peace. 

“Kylo,” Hux said a little louder.  “Don’t go back to sleep if you have work.”

Kylo grunted in acknowledgement but didn’t move or open his eyes.  There was a hand resting above his heart that felt like it had always been there.

It was a pinch to his nipple that made Kylo wake up.  “Ouch! What was that for?”

“You weren’t waking up,” Hux said with a smirk.  “I can kiss it better, if you want?”

Hux didn’t wait for Kylo to answer.  He kissed a path down Kylo’s neck, past his collarbones and down to the nipple he’d so viciously grabbed only a few seconds earlier.  Kylo’s cock began stirring when Hux’s tongue swirled around his stiffening nipple, followed swiftly by the soft press of Hux’s lips.

“You never did answer me, Kylo.  Do you have work?”

Hux was half lying on him now, his chin resting on Kylo’s sternum.  Kylo wrapped his arms around him and lay his palms on Hux’s shoulder blades. “Rey is opening the shop this morning. I don’t have to be there until eleven.”

“In that case, I’m sorry to have woken you.”

“It’s fine.”  

And it was.  Sure, Kylo wouldn’t normally have woken up until 10:15am at the earliest, but he found he couldn’t complain at the early start when it meant he had an armful of Hux.  He ran one of his awkward hands through Hux’s hair and was amused when Hux chased the contact like an over pampered house cat. He trailed his fingers over Hux’s sharp cheekbones and led them further down until they reached Hux’s chin, which he then lifted up for a kiss.

Kylo thought that he could probably kiss Hux forever.  Why did he need to go to work, eat or function as a human being when he had a naked Hux stretched out on top of him?  

“You have horrible morning breath,” Hux said with distaste as he pulled back, his nose scrunching up in a way that Kylo found to be too cute for words.

“I didn’t get a chance to brush my teeth last night because someone fell asleep on me.”

“That was very inconsiderate of them,” said Hux with a smirk.  “If you want any kisses this morning though, I suggest brushing your teeth.  You taste like something crawled in your mouth and died.”

“Are you going to let me get out of bed?”

Hux was straddling him now, his legs either side of Kylo’s hips and with the full weight of his torso lying atop Kylo’s.  It was like wearing a Hux shaped sheet, and probably shouldn’t have been as comfortable as it was.

When Hux didn’t move fast enough, Kylo pinched him on the ass.  

Hux yelped but moved as requested, flopping onto his stomach next to Kylo.  “I suppose I deserve that for pinching your nipple earlier.”

“Yep,” Kylo grinned as he got out of bed.  Kylo looked back at Hux who appeared to be trying to crawl underneath the pillows.  “Don’t fall asleep on me, I’ll be back soon.”

Kylo almost whistled when he saw the bathroom.  It sparkled with smooth marble, spotless mirrors and blindingly white towels.  The shower was one of those overhead ones that was big enough to wash half of a football team, and the separate square shaped bath looked like even he could stretch out his legs in it.  It was vastly different from his own cupboard sized bathroom with its shower that was barely tall enough to wet his hair and the bath he had to crouch in.

Maybe the most spectacular part of all though, was the view.  There was a small window right by the bath, and all Kylo could see from his position at the sink was beautiful blue water.  He moved a little closer and could also see the docks that led out into the bay. He wondered what it would be like to relax in the bath with Hux in his arms and such a wonderful view outside.

He was still thinking about that as he made use of the free amenities in the bathroom.  He brushed his teeth twice—just to be sure—washed his face and tried to do something with his hair.

When he walked back into the bedroom, Hux was still where Kylo had left him; face down in a pile of pillows.  Hux must have moved around a little though, as the sheets that had previously covered him were now sitting dangerously low.  Hux was bare past the dip of his lower back and down to the swell of his buttocks, and Kylo idly wondered if Hux had arranged the sheets like that on purpose.

If he had, Kylo didn’t care.  He sat down on the bed next to Hux and ran his hand down the middle of Hux’s back, taking note of how Hux shivered under his touch.  “That bathroom is amazing.”

Hux twisted his head slightly so that he could look in Kylo’s direction, but otherwise didn’t move.  Kylo continued stroking his back. “It is impressive, isn’t it? The shower pressure is amazing.”

“I loved the bathtub the most,” Kylo replied before adding, “it’s definitely big enough for two.”

Hux rolled onto his side to face him.  Kylo could see the sharp angles of his hips.  “Is it, now? I suppose it’s only right that we try it out, in that case.”

“I’ll go and put the water on.”

The bath was practically full before Hux finally came into the bathroom.  Kylo didn’t see him enter and only noticed Hux when he dipped a couple of fingers into the water to check the temperature.  Hux nodded in approval and then climbed in. When Hux reached a hand out to Kylo, beckoning him to join him in the soothing water, Kylo couldn’t move fast enough.

He settled between Hux’s legs, his back resting against Hux’s chest and with his own legs stretched out in front of him.  He wondered if he’d be too heavy, but Hux didn’t seem to mind. Hux’s arms wrapped around his chest and Kylo could feel the strain in his muscles slipping away.  He put so many hours in at the coffee shop and at the gym but never took any time just to relax and soothe his stresses. Maybe he needed to start taking better care of himself and carve out a few hours each week just to kick back and relax.

“This isn’t just a bath,” Hux said, his breath brushing one of Kylo’s sensitive ears, “there are some controls somewhere that will turn it into a spa.”

“With bubbles?  Do you want me to switch it on?”

Hux chuckled and Kylo felt it vibrate through his chest.  “You’re easily pleased, aren’t you? But no, I have other ideas.”

“What ideas are–”

Hux’s hand was on his cock.  He was soft, but it didn’t take long for Hux’s talented fingers to start teasing him into hardness.  Hux used his other hand to move Kylo’s hair out of the way and mouthed his way up Kylo’s neck until he could nibble on his ear.  Kylo usually did his best to hide his ears from any lovers so he’d never had chance to realize exactly how sensitive they could be.  He wasn’t going to hide them from Hux though, not when Hux’s teeth felt so good as they pulled on his lobe.

Hux had his cock in a tight grip, but his movements were languid.  His intention seemed to be to tease more so than pleasure—although there was definitely pleasure to be found in those hand movements—and it was drawing Kylo under Hux’s spell.  When Hux’s hand dropped lower to cup his balls, his thumb brushing over the sensitive skin there, Kylo couldn’t stop his hips from thrusting into the touch. It made the water surrounding them slosh around a little, the waves in the tub a mirror to the waves in the bay outside.

“Do you remember what I said to you last night?” Hux asked, low and secretive, as if anything louder would break the mood.

Kylo remembered a lot of things; the taste of Hux’s lips, the feel of Hux’s hands on him and the sounds Hux had made as Kylo had fucked him. “When, exactly?”

“After you asked if you could fuck me.”

Kylo cast his mind back and tried to think.  It was difficult to concentrate on any one moment when Hux was so effectively distracting him.  He was still working Kylo’s cock with his right hand in that same, teasing pace as before, but now his left hand was tracing the outline of Kylo’s mouth.  Kylo sucked in one of Hux’s fingers, caressed it with his tongue, and groaned when Hux curled his finger up and stroked the roof of his mouth.

Then he remembered what Hux had said.  “Oh.” He blushed.

“Hm, I said that you could fuck me, as long as I could return the favor.  So, can I, Kylo?”

Kylo wasn’t sure who answered, because that breathy, high-pitched “yes” could not have come from him, could it?  It wasn’t possible that Kylo could sound that desperate from such little stimulation, or that he would chase after Hux’s hands when the other man let go of him.  It wasn’t in Kylo’s nature to be so needy, but then again, he’d never had a partner like Hux before. Kylo took a deep breath and tried to get himself back under control.

Hux had moved to the other side of the bathtub and leaned over the side a little to grab hold of something that was just out of reach.  He was beautiful; not even the bright pink flush that covered Hux’s lower body and half of his torso—caused by the hot water—could take away from how gorgeous he was.  Kylo wanted to spend hours mapping out Hux’s body; memorizing the location of every freckle and finding his weak spots. He hoped he’d get chance.

Hux turned back to face Kylo.  The same lube and unopened condoms as the night before in his hands.  He must have brought them with him when he came into the bathroom; Kylo had been too preoccupied with running the bath to notice.  The fact that Hux had planned and prepared to fuck him in the tub made Kylo shiver.

“On your knees,” Hux instructed.  “Elbows on the side of the bath.”

Kylo did as he was told.  He climbed to his knees and slowly waded over to the side of the bath that faced the rest of the bathroom and placed his elbows on the side.  Although the bath was deep he still had to lean down a little to be able to reach the rim of the bath, and Kylo was suddenly aware how exposed it made him.  The entire length of his torso was now out of the water, as was his ass.

Exactly how Hux wanted him.  

Hux moved behind him, making the water ripple again with every movement.  Kylo could feel the ebb and flow of the water against his skin; at its highest it briefly brushed his balls and the head of his cock, at its lowest it barely came to his mid-thigh.  He felt Hux’s fine hands take a firm hold of his hips and pull them back slightly, causing him to bend even lower and present himself even more to Hux’s view.

“You’re so beautiful,” Hux mused, “I’m going to thoroughly enjoy this.”

Hux’s touch was electric as it mapped out the bumps and curves of Kylo’s back.  He seemed determined to get his fingers on every taut muscle, and Kylo’s lower back arched under the attention.  Occasionally Hux’s fingers would move a little wider and would brush against Kylo’s ribs, the hard edges of his stomach and the muscled softness of his chest.  By the time Hux’s fingers finally found his ass—their first touch brief and light—Kylo was putty in his hands.

All Kylo could see was that beautiful bathroom, with its marble counters and marble floors.  He couldn’t see Hux at all, but he could _feel_ him.  It was more than just the physical touch though, as Kylo swore he could feel Hux’s desire for him with every sweep of those talented hands.  It had been a long time—twelve years, a different name, and an inexperienced Poe Dameron ago—since someone had handled him with such reverence.  All of Kylo’s experiences, even those that could be labeled relationships, tended to be rougher. And while he liked the rough treatment, there was something to be said for being taken care of.

Hux’s mouth soon followed where his hands previously explored.  He started low, at Kylo’s tail bone, and moved up. Kisses, licks, bites—Kylo never knew what was coming next.  By the time Hux reached the base of his neck, Kylo’s gasps could be heard echoing around the bathroom. He could feel the heat from Hux’s body down the length of his back and Hux’s hard cock was pressed against him, teasing him with what was to come.

Kylo pushed back, chasing more contact from Hux’s hips, but Hux simply pulled away.  “It’s okay, I’ll take care of you, Kylo. You’re being so good for me.”

Kylo growled.  He heard Hux chuckle at his impatience, but felt slightly placated when he heard the unmistakable sound of a cap being popped open.  He flinched in surprise when he felt a few drops of lube trickle onto the skin of his ass, but only moaned when one of Hux’s fingers pushed inside him.

Hux didn’t have the thickest fingers, but they were long and it had truly been a while since Kylo had had anything inside him.  Whenever Kylo did find the time and energy to masturbate he was swift and to the point; usually just a quick hand around his cock in the shower, or occasionally on his sofa while his laptop played whatever he could find on PornHub.  He never fingered himself, and as Hux pushed another finger inside, he wondered why he didn’t.

Hux was really beginning to stretch him now, and Kylo couldn’t help but widen his stance slightly.  He spread his knees a little, bringing himself closer to the water and causing it to rush over his dick again.  Hux was changing his angle now, poking around and looking for—

“Fuck, Hux,” Kylo groaned.  “I’m ready.”

“Now who’s impatient?” Hux said.  Kylo couldn’t see it, but he knew that Hux was smirking at him.

Hux seemed content to believe Kylo, however, and withdrew his fingers. Kylo felt cold and empty without Hux’s touch—despite the heat of the water—but told himself that what was about to come, would be far better.

The bathroom was silent other than for the occasional sound of the bath water moving, and it made the few sounds Hux made even louder.  Kylo swore that he could hear the tear of the condom wrapper, the snap of latex, and Hux’s heavy breathing as he worked the condom down his length. Those heavy breaths made way for soft groans when Hux covered his cock in lube, and Kylo was groaning along with him.

But still, Hux wasn’t quite ready.  Not yet. There were hands on Kylo’s buttocks, spreading him open and exposing his most hidden place to Hux’s hungry view.  Hux didn’t move for the longest time, and Kylo’s heart thudded heavily in his chest at the thought that Hux was simply staring at him, imagining what he was about to do and building the anticipation.

When Hux had finally had his fill of purely looking, he gripped Kylo by the hips with one hand and guided himself inside with the other.  It felt so glorious to finally have Hux’s cock inside him. Kylo could feel the stretch and the slight burn that came with it, but it was the kind of burn that delivered its pain wrapped fully in pleasure.  It felt good. It felt like living.

“You feel so hot, Kylo.  Like you were made for me.  Do you feel that, too?”

“ _Yes._ ”

Hux licked around the edge of Kylo’s left shoulder blade as he continued moving.  “Can you touch yourself for me? I want to see how you do it. I want you to come apart while I’m inside you.”

Kylo grabbed his cock at Hux’s request, stroking himself  in time with Hux’s thrusts, his hand adding a wicked twist whenever he came close to the head.  He couldn’t keep his hand out of the water as he moved it, and the sound of the splashing water mingled with the slick sound of flesh hitting flesh as Hux continued to pound into him.  It echoed around the room and Kylo felt like he was being enveloped in the sound of what they were doing. He could barely hear Hux’s groans of pleasure because of the noise, but he couldn’t mistake the way Hux’s grip on his hips was beginning to become harsher.

Hux had been on his knees, but as his thrusts became more erratic he changed his position slightly.  Although his left knee remained on the floor of the tub, he stood on his right foot with his leg bent along Kylo’s side.  It was an uneven position and he needed to brace himself against the side of the tub, but it gave him a deeper angle that made it easier to target Kylo’s prostate.

Kylo felt like he was barely hanging on.  The water was crashing against the side of the tub, Hux’s cock was hitting him just right and he could feel that fire building in the pit of his stomach.  He wasn’t going to last much longer; he couldn’t.

He came Hux’s cock deep inside of him, his name on his lips, and tell-tale sights of finger-shaped bruises on his hips.  He counted one, two, three more thrusts before Hux found his own release and collapsed onto Kylo’s back. They stayed like that for a short time, both catching their breaths as Kylo’s knees just about had enough strength left to hold them both up.  Hux arms were wrapped around him and his mouth was in Kylo’s hair, and despite the extra weight and the exhaustion creeping into him, Kylo didn’t want to move.

Nothing lasts forever, however, and Hux soon softened and broke the contact.  Kylo heard the sound of the water splashing again as Hux moved around, but it wasn’t until it settled that he finally moved himself and turned to face Hux.  Hux was sat down again—his back against the wall of the tub furthest away from Kylo—and he looked thoroughly pleased with himself. He had every right to be, Kylo thought.

Hux smiled that heartbreakingly sweet smile again.  “Come here, Kylo.”

Kylo sat next to him.  He stretched his legs out again and his knees groaned in relief.  Being bent over and fucked in the tub was a memory Kylo would never forget, but now that it was over his knees were not happy with him.  The ache in his hip from how tightly Hux had gripped him and the one in his ass from not having been fucked in so long, were far more welcome.

He was surprised but pleased when Hux shuffled over and leaned against him, his head coming to rest on Kylo’s shoulder.  Kylo draped an arm around Hux’s shoulders and placed a kiss on Hux’s temple. It was calm and quiet in the bathroom now. Relaxing.  The water was starting to cool slightly and the morning was slowly progressing, but it didn’t seem to matter. They could stay there for a little while before Kylo had to get ready for work and Hux had to do whatever Hux had to do.

Hux seemed to agree with him as they sat there, eyes closed, until the water became too cold.


	3. Chapter 3

The next couple of months passed in a blur.  The unusually cold winter began to give way to more typically mild weather and the first signs of spring started to be seen.  Kylo’s life was still dominated by the coffee shop and his training sessions at the gym, but now he had evenings with Hux to make things that little bit brighter.  He was content. Happy even. Kylo kept expecting things to fall apart, but they never did. 

Hux didn’t come to the coffee shop anymore.  Why would he need to when he woke up most mornings to a fresh cup of tea, brewed especially for him by his own personal barista?  The nights they spent together—usually at Hux’s ridiculously large apartment—had quickly become sickenly domestic, but Kylo treasured every moment.  

Hux worked far too hard.  Kylo hadn’t realized how intense the insurance business could be until he started dating Hux.  The redhead was often out of town to attend conferences or to deal personally with a big league client. It wasn’t unusual for Kylo’s text messages to remain unread for hours on end either. On some of the nights they did spend together, Hux was too tired to even maintain a conversation.  Instead, he would just crawl into bed—pulling Kylo along with him—before clinging onto Kylo and sleeping the night away.

The first two weeks of April had been especially busy for Hux, and Kylo had barely seen him.  Hux had done his best; he had sent more text messages than usual—some even with emojis. Every time Kylo had received a message from him, his heart skipped a beat.  It wasn’t the same as waking up next to Hux, but Hux’s attempt at sexting held its own type of charm.

So when Hux strolled into Skywalker Coffee on a Monday afternoon in mid-April, Kylo hadn’t been expecting it.  

Hux had been away that weekend again, and Kylo wasn’t expecting to see him until Tuesday evening at the earliest.  He’d planned to spend his Monday evening in the coffee shop, working until it closed at 9 p.m., before heading to a long training session at the gym.  By the time he would have finished putting his knights through their paces in the sparring ring, he’d be so tired that he’d fall asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.  That was how he had wanted it. But, now that Hux had literally walked in the door, he was willing to change his mind.

He told Rey he was going for his break and stepped out from behind the counter.  Hux was sat at the same sofa as before and he smiled softly when he saw Kylo making his way across the busy coffee shop.  As it was the mid-afternoon the shop wasn’t at its busiest—that was reserved for commuting times and mealtimes—but business was still brisk.  Most of the tables were taken and there was a short line of people waiting to be served, which is probably why Kylo didn’t see Maz Kanata until he nearly stepped on her.

Maz was the owner of the Takodana bar, which was located two blocks away from Skywalker Coffee.  Kylo had known her all of his life, and had been taller than her since he was nine-years-old.  Nobody should let that diminutive stature or her age fool them, however, as Maz was one of the most formidable people Kylo knew.  

“Ben!  I haven’t seen you in months!  How are you? How’s the family?”

Kylo stopped dead in his tracks.  He wanted to continue walking over to Hux, but knew he couldn’t ignore Maz.  Even if she did insist on still calling him Ben. “I’m good. Everyone is good.”  He hoped that would be enough to placate her.

It wasn’t.  “You should come to Takodana sometime!  I’ll fix you one of my special Tom Collins.  I know how much you love those!”

“Sounds great,” Kylo said flatly.  He looked over the top of Maz’s head and across to where Hux was sitting and saw that Hux was looking at him with a confused expression.

“I was cleaning the bar yesterday,” Maz continued, “and I saw your mother on the news.”

Maz, although formidable, was also practically blind, so she didn’t notice when Kylo mouthed _“help me”_ at Hux.  “Yeah?”

“Leia’s very brave, taking on the mob like that.  I know it’s re-election year for her so she has to do something, I just hope it doesn’t backfire on her.”

Kylo barely listened.  Hux was shrugging his shoulders, obviously amused at Kylo’s predicament.  He wondered how it looked to Hux; a tall and strapping guy like him being kept halfway across the shop by a little old lady with glasses bigger than her head.  “Right.”

“Actually, I had a lovely young fellow working for me last year.  He was so polite. Always on time, too. Then he made friends with the wrong people and joined Kanjiklub.  I’m sure you’ve heard of them, Ben? They’re that new mob that have been causing all of this trouble. Anyway, two months later he was dead.  Murdered. By the First Order. He’d been dealing on their territory, or something. Such a waste of a young life.”

“Hm-hm.”  Hux was laughing at him now.  Bastard.

“I hope Leia can stop this mob warfare.  I’ll be voting for her. She’s the best mayor this city has ever had.  Don’t you agree?”

Kylo had no idea what he was agreeing to, but he agreed anyway.  He just wanted to speak to Hux. “Definitely.”

“At least Leia has the backing of the police.  I’m sure Chief Solo will do all he can to help.  I’m still not sure if it’s constitutional for the mayor and chief of police to be married, but they’re doing a good job.”

Hux seemed to be enjoying Kylo’s pain at being stuck with Maz far too much.  Kylo glared across the coffee shop at him, and Hux only laughed louder. He was glad to see that laugh again, Kylo just wished it wasn’t at his expense.  “Look, Maz…”

“Oh!  Is that the time?  I need to get to Takodana and get ready for opening time!  You’ve kept me here talking for too long, Ben.”

Kylo wanted to argue that she had been the one keeping him, but thought better of it.  “Sorry, Maz.”

“It’s all right, dear,” she said, reaching up on tiptoes to tap him on the cheek. “I’ll leave, and you can go speak to that cute redhead over there.”

“Huh?”

“I’m not as blind as you think I am,” Maz said, smiling.  “Remember, there’s a Tom Collins waiting for you, plus whatever your boyfriend drinks.”

Kylo watched in stunned silence as Maz made her way to the exit.  She waved at Hux as she left and he gave her a bemused wave back. It took an entire chorus line of Roxy Music’s “Love is the Drug” before Kylo had regained his senses enough to finally move.  

He sat down next to Hux on the sofa and resisted the urge to immediately jump on the man.  There were so many things that Kylo wanted to do to Hux—half of which would get him banned from his own coffee shop—but he forced himself to be content with just sitting next to him.  It had only been three days since their goodbye lunch last week, but it felt like so much longer. 

Kylo idly wondered if Hux had missed him as much as he’d missed Hux. When Hux was away at his insurance conferences or was being wined and dined by big money clients, did he wish he was back home rewatching _Breaking Bad_ on Netflix while sharing a pizza with Kylo?  Hux was far more reticent than Kylo who had always worn his emotions on his sleeve, and sometimes it was hard to accurately understand what Hux was thinking.

Kylo got his answer when Hux picked up one of his clumsy hands and held it gently between Hux’s more elegant ones.  

“Who was that woman?” Hux asked.

“An old friend of the family.  I’ve known her all of my life. She used to babysit me, actually.”

“She did?  So she might have embarrassing stories about baby Kylo? Maybe I should try and find her.”

Kylo glared at Hux again, but just like earlier there was no heat in his stare. Hux always teased him, and Kylo always allowed it. “I wasn’t expecting you back until tomorrow.”

“I was able to take care of things a little quicker than I expected.”

“I hope everything worked out.”

“Oh yes,” Hux said with a smile, “it was a very profitable weekend.  But, I didn’t come here to talk about work. I came to see you. What time do you finish work today?”

Hux was casually stroking the back of Kylo’s hand.  It was highly distracting as it reminded Kylo of how Hux would stroke other parts of his body. “Around nine.”

“That late?”

“Yeah, I’m scheduled to close the shop today.”

“That’s unfortunate.  The Grand Illusion Cinema has a special screening of _Terminator 2_ today.  I know you love that movie and have always wanted to see it on the big screen.  It starts at 7 p.m. though, and it’s at least a twenty minute drive from here.”

“Maybe tomorrow?”

“It’s one night only,” Hux explained.  “Wait here a minute, Kylo.”

Hux stood up and went to the counter, waiting patiently in line behind a young couple who were ordering frappuccinos.  He leaned against the counter as he read the menu board, and Kylo thought that Hux looked completely at home. His expensive suits and classy Italian loafers didn’t quite match the rustic and slightly dated aesthetic of Skywalker Coffee, but somehow, he still looked like he belonged.

Kylo had taken to carrying his cell phone with him on the days that Hux was away and he had it with him now.  As Hux leaned over the counter to speak with Rey, Kylo snapped a couple of photos. No matter what the future held for him and Hux, Kylo wanted to remember Hux here, in the place they’d first met.

Kylo stuffed his phone back in his pocket and wondered when he’d become so sentimental.

Hux was soon back with two paper cups in hand; an Earl Grey for him, and a straight black coffee with an espresso shot for Kylo.  He wondered if Hux had been able to guess his usual mid-afternoon caffeine fix or whether Rey had told him. He knew he could ask, but he wanted to believe that Hux had figured it out himself.

“Rey has kindly agreed to stay late and close the shop this evening.  She’s also volunteered Finn to help her, although I’m not sure Finn is aware of this yet,” Hux laughed.  “So, you are free to finish at six and come to the cinema with me.”

“She has?” Kylo asked.  He looked over to the counter and saw Rey speaking to an unimpressed looking Finn.  She gave Kylo a double thumbs up, and he smiled in response. “I’ll have to thank her properly, later.”

“In return, you’re working late tomorrow and painting her living room on Sunday.”

No wonder Rey looked so happy.  “Fine.”

“I’d love to stay here until then, but I do have some work to take care of,” Hux explained as he stood up.  “I’ll be back at six, though.”

“I’ll be waiting.”

Hux leaned down and placed a chaste kiss on Kylo’s forehead before grabbing his tea and leaving the shop.  Kylo watched him as he left, and saw the blonde woman—Phasma—fall into step beside him. Had she been waiting outside the coffee shop the whole time?  

Kylo sipped his coffee, and then went back to work.  

**

Usually whenever Kylo and Hux went out an a date, it was in Hux’s trusty Audi.  It was a nice car—definitely out of Kylo’s price range—but nothing too flashy. Once, when the Audi had been in the garage for its annual check-up, they’d gone out in Kylo’s Falcon.  It was one of those classic cars that, in the right hands, could turn heads.  Unfortunately, this car had been run into the ground for thirty years by Chief Solo, and had broken down on the first, and last, time Kylo had driven Hux in it.

Kylo stood outside Skywalker Coffee at 6 p.m. sharp, waiting to see Hux’s red Audi appear.  Rey had shoved him into the staff room fifteen minutes ago and had insisted he did his best to _“make himself look pretty.”_ He’d spent fourteen minutes wondering if that was even possible, and one minute pulling his hair out of the bun he always wore when he worked.  Hux liked his hair loose, he’d discovered. And Kylo liked it when Hux pulled, just so.

He was so busy looking for a red Audi, that he barely noticed when a different car pulled up right in front of him.  It wasn’t until the electric window on the rear passenger side lowered and Hux called his name, that Kylo gave the car his attention.

It was a black Rolls Royce.  A _Phantom_.  It was the kind of car that people like Kylo didn’t even dream about owning because they knew that it would never happen.  

When Hux opened the door and shifted over on the back seat to allow Kylo to enter, Kylo did so with amazement.  The car was just as spectacular inside as it was outside, and not for the first time Kylo wondered exactly what type of insurance Hux sold.  Phasma was driving. She didn’t acknowledge Kylo at all, but smoothly pulled away from the curb and back into the traffic as soon as he was settled.

“This is an amazing car,” Kylo said.

“It is, isn’t it?” Hux agreed with a hint of smugness in his voice.

“How can you afford this?”

“It’s a company car.  I use it purely for business.”

Oh, that was right.  Hux had said that he had some work to take care of before going to the cinema with Kylo.  Still, a Rolls Royce seemed overkill for an insurance salesman, just like the suite at the Chandrila Plaza had been, too.

Kylo knew better than to complain about it, though.  Instead, he relaxed into the plush leather seats, stretched out his legs in the more than ample legroom, and enjoyed the smooth ride to the cinema.

**

“I can’t believe you’ve never seen _Terminator 2_ before.  Did you enjoy it?”

They were standing outside the cinema, leaning against the brightly painted wall that separated the cinema from the rest of the drab street.  Hux was tucked in next to him with his arm loosely draped around Kylo’s waist as he tried to leech some of Kylo’s body heat. Although the air had changed from winter to spring, the nights were still cool and Kylo didn’t mind if Hux stole some heat from him.  After all, it gave him an excuse to pull Hux in tighter and rest his tired head against Hux’s.

They were waiting for Phasma to come back with their ride home.  Part of Kylo, however, didn’t want to move from that spot. Standing there, with a street light illuminating them and casting only a single shadow because they were pressed together so closely, was like something out of a movie itself. Everything about Hux was like a movie when Kylo thought about it. He was handsome enough to be a leading man and his lifestyle—the expensive suits, the sprawling apartment and the chauffeur driven Rolls Royce—was straight out of Hollywood.

But Hux was real and honest, and for some reason, Hux had chosen _him_.

“I enjoyed watching it with you.”“That’s a no, then,” Kylo said with a smile.

Hux poked him in the side.  “That’s not what I said! I did enjoy the movie, but I enjoyed watching you watch it more.”

Kylo had hoped that three months of dating Hux would make it harder for Hux to make him blush, but that was not the case.  Luckily, his embarrassment went unnoticed due to the unmistakable sight of a black Phantom pulling up at the curb in front of them.

Hux opened the back door and gestured for Kylo to enter first.  Kylo wasn’t sure if it was borne from manners or was just a way for Hux to ogle his ass as he bent over.  Either way, he didn’t really mind. The car was just as luxurious as he remembered it being and he closed his eyes as he sank into the plush upholstery.  It was a million miles away from the thin and lumpy back seat in The Falcon.  This was a back seat to have sex on.

Kylo shook his mind free of those thoughts and stared out of the tinted windows.  He’d never had as much regular and good sex as he’d had since he’d started dating Hux, but it never seemed to be enough.  It wasn’t all about the sex, of course. He loved to hear Hux ramble about what interested him, or poke holes in movie plots, or lecture about the events leading up to various important wars—of which, Hux knew far too much about.  He even found Hux’s awful shower singing to be endearing.

But he still found himself craving Hux’s touch all of the time.  He’d see Hux standing in the kitchen and a desire to bend him over the kitchen table would fill him.  Whenever Kylo saw the black office chair in Hux’s study, he would wonder if it’d withstand the force of him straddling Hux’s lap and riding Hux’s dick until he screamed.  

The only thing saving Kylo’s sanity, was that he was pretty sure Hux was having similar thoughts about him.  He saw the way Hux’s gaze would occasionally drop to his lips as he spoke, before snapping back up to his eyes.  He knew that on the few occasions they’d gone to the gym together, Hux had spent more time staring at Kylo than he had actually exercising.

That Hux wanted to fuck him as much as he wanted to fuck Hux was the most arousing thing of all.

When Hux’s right hand reached across the backseat and gripped Kylo’s lower thigh, Kylo wasn’t surprised.  It was an innocent enough way to keep physical contact between them. When that hand started moving higher, kneading the muscles of Kylo’s inner thighs in a way that Hux had honed to perfection over the last three months, Kylo squirmed in his seat slightly.  His thighs were a particularly sensitive spot for him, and Hux had found great joy in discovering that.

Hux’s hand inched even higher, and Kylo grabbed him by the wrist.  “What are you doing, Hux?”

“I just want to touch you,” Hux replied.  His hand had stopped its upward movement, but hadn’t stopped squeezing.

“We’re in the car.”

“I’m aware of that.”

“We’re not alone.”“I’m aware of that, too.”

Kylo found it hard to believe that Hux was aware of that at all when Hux leaned over, brushed away Kylo’s hair with his left hand and then licked the shell of his ear.  When Hux gently moved that hand to Kylo’s cheek and guided his face in for a kiss, Kylo followed, instantly melting under the touch of Hux’s lips against his own.

Hux was such a good kisser.  Whether it was innocent light pecks, teasing bites or toe-curling sweeps of his tongue, he was good at them all.  There were times when Hux’s kisses could make Kylo feel like the most precious thing alive and then there were times—such as right now on the back seat of a Rolls Royce—when it felt like Hux wanted to devour him.  

“Hux,” Kylo gasped out between kisses, “Phasma—”

“She doesn’t care.”  Hux’s hand was no longer kneading Kylo’s thigh—it was at his crotch.  “Do you, Phasma?”

Kylo locked eyes with Phasma in the rearview mirror.  Her blue eyes were sparkling with amusement as she looked over the scene unfolding on the backseat.  “Not at all. Have fun.”

“See?” Hux said, triumphantly.

Hux’s hand was rubbing at Kylo’s dick through the crotch of his jeans and he could feel himself beginning to harden.  Kylo wanted nothing more than to give in, but there were still a million reasons racing through his mind as to why this was a very, very bad idea.  Only now Hux was mouthing at his jawline, and it was becoming increasingly difficult to think about anything other than what his hot boyfriend was doing to him in the back of his equally hot car.

It was his belt being opened that snapped Kylo back to reality.  “We can’t, Hux.”

“Why not?”

“What if someone sees?”

Kylo’s belt was now open, as was the button that lay beneath it.  “The windows are tinted, Kylo. Nobody can see in unless they put their face against the glass.”

Hux slid off the seat, stepped over Kylo’s thigh and sank to his knees between Kylo’s legs.  There was enough room between the front and back seats for Hux to get comfortable there, and as he peered up at Kylo through his long red eyelashes, he looked like he’d found the place he was meant to be.  He pulled down Kylo’s underwear and exposed his hard cock to the warmth of the car. That heat was nothing, however, compared to the heat in Hux’s eyes.

“What about the police?” Kylo gasped.

“What about them?”

Hux’s thumb was teasing the smooth head of his cock, tracing circles and rubbing the vein that lay below.  “What if they pull us over?”

“They won’t pull us over,” Hux said with a certainty that Kylo wished he could feel.

“But—”

“Why would they?  Phasma’s driving is impeccable, as is this car.”

“They do random checks—”

“Not to this car, they won’t.  Not in this part of town.”

That seemed like a strange thing to say, Kylo thought; did Hux have friends on the police force in this district that would recognize his car and let it pass?  

“If you really want me to stop, I will,” Hux said gently.  “But you really don’t need to worry about us being caught.”

Hux licked him, his tongue sliding from root to tip in one, firm stroke.  All of Kylo’s protests died with that one sweep and he no longer cared if the entire populace of Seattle was watching; all he wanted was Hux’s mouth on his cock.

He gave his answer by sliding his fingers into Hux’s neatly styled hair and gently pushing Hux’s head forward.  He caught the fleeting smirk that appeared on Hux’s lips, but then those lips were around him and nothing seemed to matter anymore.  

The Phantom was a remarkably smooth and quiet ride and it meant that every sloppy noise Hux made as he sucked down Kylo’s cock could be clearly heard.  For all of his usual cleanliness and fastidiousness, Hux cared little about giving neat blowjobs. Hux pulled back to give his jaw a brief rest and let his hands take over, his chin and lips slick with a mix of saliva and Kylo’s pre-come.  

Kylo bucked his hips into Hux’s grip, but Hux soon put a stop to that with a firm hand on Kylo’s thigh and a harsh pinch to the soft skin there.  Kylo had quickly learned that there were times when Hux wanted to be taken care of and other times when he wanted to run the show. That pinch was Hux’s way of saying “sit still, and take only the pleasure I’m willing to give you.”

His hand was still in Hux’s hair, but it was now there for reassurance and contact, not control.  Kylo stretched his right arm along the back of what had been Hux’s seat and tried to get comfortable again as Hux continued his work.  Hux was sucking at him now, his lips wrapped tightly around Kylo’s head and his already sharp cheekbones made even sharper from the force of his suction.  Kylo didn’t even attempt to regulate the moans that were spilling from his lips and he was sure that Phasma could hear every suck, every lick and every groan.

When Kylo’s hazy eyes glanced over the rear view mirror and saw Phasma’s raised white-blonde eyebrow, it was obvious she could.

Hux’s nose was pressed against him and his throat contracted around him. Kylo hadn’t mastered the art of deep throating like Hux had—not for the want of trying—but Hux was not a selfish lover.  He was always as excited by Kylo’s fumbling honesty as Kylo was by Hux’s cool experience and they had been remarkably well-suited since the start.

“Hux, I’m close.”

Kylo wasn’t sure if Hux would pull back and finish him with his hands or continue with his mouth—and he would have been honestly satisfied with either—but there was an extra thrill that came with coming in Hux’s mouth.  

Hux rested his chin on Kylo’s knee and licked his lips.  He looked content, Kylo thought, like a house cat that had been well-fed and was now waiting for its ears to be scratched.  Kylo settled for stroking Hux’s face.

“Thank you, Hux.  That was amazing.”

“It was, wasn’t it?”

Kylo rolled his eyes at Hux’s fake arrogance, and played with a loose lock of his hair.  “Let me do something for you, now.”

“Not necessary.”

Hux had never been selfish enough to demand an orgasm in return for every one he wrung out of Kylo, but Kylo soon saw that Hux had other reasons for declining Kylo’s help.  Hux’s right hand was covered in his own come. His slacks were still open too, and Kylo quickly realized that Hux had been touching himself as he’d been sucking off Kylo. 

He hadn’t even noticed.

He grabbed Hux’s fine wrist and pulled his hand to his mouth.  It didn’t take much to lick Hux’s palm clean, and then Kylo delicately and deliberately sucked each of Hux’s fingers clean.  Kylo had never particularly liked the taste of come, Hux’s being no different, but it was worth the unpleasant taste in his mouth to hear Hux’s sharp gasps.

Hux pulled some wet wipes out of one of the compartments in the door and wiped his fingers clean.  He gave Kylo’s sensitized, soft cock a few gentle wipes and tucked him back into his pants before fixing his own slacks.  Hux seemed to enjoy cleaning up after sex and Kylo was willing to let him do it. His own after sex routine usually involved falling asleep without bothering, so it was yet another way that they were perfectly suited.

Hux took his seat again.  “You can take us home now, Phasma.”

“Wait, we’ve not been going home?  You planned to have sex in the car?”

“This is a sexy car.  I’ve always wanted to have sex in it,” Hux shrugged, “and I hoped you’d be willing.  I asked Phasma to drive around a little because I didn’t want to arrive home before we’d finished.”

Kylo was laughing as he kissed Hux.  “You know how to get what you want, don’t you?”

“You have no idea.”

**

It was a balmy late June evening and Kylo was sipping from a glass of white wine as he introduced Hux to the joys of Christopher Nolan’s _Batman_ trilogy.  Ever since they’d gone to see _Terminator 2_ two months earlier and Hux had confessed that he hadn’t seen any of the action movies that Kylo had grown up loving, Thursdays had turned into movie nights.  So that it wasn’t just week after week of glorified Hollywood violence, they took it in turns to pick the movies. Hux’s choices were an eclectic mix of arthouse classics, foreign language movies and romantic comedies that Hux knew every word of.  

Hux was lying flat out on the sofa, his own empty wine glass discarded long ago.  His bare feet dangled over the edge and his head was comfortably resting upon Kylo’s thick thighs.  Hux’s hair was loose of its usual harsh style and looked like threads of red and gold against the black of Kylo’s jeans.  He was also dressed as casually as Hux ever allowed himself to be in a pair of dark chinos and a pale blue shirt that was unbuttoned to his sternum.

Kylo loved seeing Hux like this.  He still cut an impressive figure, but was a little softer around the edges.  Hux wore his suits, Italian loafers, and hair gel like an armor designed to impress and intimidate everyone he came into contact with.  He didn’t remove that armor for anyone; but Kylo had become an exception.

Although they’d been dating for about six months by now, Kylo was still astonished by how easily Hux accepted Kylo and his faults into his well organized life.  There was a treadmill and weights set in Hux’s study, a coffee roaster in the kitchen, and a pile of books that Hux had borrowed from Skywalker Coffee that Kylo never asked to be returned.  There were just as many traces of Hux at Kylo’s crappy apartment, too; the tub of pomade in the bathroom, the necktie Hux had left behind and never reclaimed, and the classical CDs mixed in with Kylo’s passion for 1970s rock.

It was the longest and most fulfilling relationship that Kylo had ever had. Although Hux had never said as much, Kylo had the distinct impression that it was the same for Hux, too.

That’s not to say that things always ran smoothly.  Hux occasionally canceled plans with little to no notice due to his obligations at work and although Kylo understood, it was still painful to be left standing alone outside a restaurant while so many other happy couples dined inside. Kylo’s temper—more under control now that it ever had been—had showed itself a couple of times, and had resulted in Hux being a couple of drinking glasses short.

They were nothing more than minor bumps in the road, though.  All throughout Kylo’s teens and his lost years in New York, he’d never been able to look more than a few months ahead.  Make it through to the next school vacation. Keep things calm until the rental agreement ran out next month. But now, Kylo was looking to his future, to the very end, and he saw Hux there with him.

Just as Bruce Wayne first saw what would become his batsuit, Kylo's phone rang.

It was Leia.  

Kylo stared down at the phone screen that confirmed that yes, his mother really was calling him, and felt a little surge of panic.  Although his relationship with his parents had healed since he’d returned to Seattle and taken over Skywalker Coffee, it still wasn’t perfect.  They still didn’t have the kind of relationship were they’d just call each other to chat, and with her campaign to be re-elected as mayor well under way, she didn’t have much time for social calls.

Could it be something was wrong?

“Who is it?” Hux asked, his eyes still glued to the screen and Christian Bale’s handsome face.

“My mother.”

Hux immediately looked away from the screen and up at Kylo.  Kylo hadn’t told Hux much about his parents, but it was enough for Hux to know that there were still some issues there.  “Aren’t you going to answer it?” Hux’s voice had been gentle and coaxing in his suggestion.

“I should,” Kylo agreed.  “I’ll take it in the bedroom, if that’s okay?”

“Of course.”  Hux sat up so that Kylo could stand and squeezed Kylo’s hand, his green eyes full of concern and support.

Kylo smiled back, but didn’t answer the call until he was in the bedroom with the door closed behind him.  He wasn’t trying to keep secrets from Hux, but the Skywalker-Solos and the unique brand of drama that followed them was something that Kylo dealt with better on his own, at least for now. Maybe he’d need to seek comfort before the night was finished.

He took a deep breath and spoke.  “Hi, Mom.”

“Ben!  It’s good to hear your voice again!”

The voice of Leia Organa came through the phone loud and clear.  She sounded happy and untroubled, and Kylo breathed an internal sigh of relief. His worries that something bad had happened dissipated and he was left wondering why she’d called him.

“You, too.”

“How’s things at the coffee shop?”

“Good.  I saw Maz a couple of months ago and she asked me to say hi.”

“That was nice of her,” Leia said.  Kylo recognized the tone she was using with him.  It was the same falsely bright tone she used when she was dealing with politicians she didn’t want to speak to.  These were false platitudes, and not the reason for her call.

“What do you want, Leia?”

“I can’t call my only child just to see how he is?”  When Kylo didn’t respond, Leia continued talking. “I spoke to Rey last week.  She seems to be doing very well with her studies.”

Suddenly, Kylo understood where this was going.  “She’s been working very hard.”

“She told me about that man you’re dating.”

“Did she now.”

He knew that he couldn’t blame Rey as Leia had this ability to worm information out of anyone.  It was part of the reason why she’d been such a successful politician. If Kylo knew his mother well, which he did, she’d probably picked at Rey about her relationship with Finn until Rey had offered up Kylo’s relationship with Hux as a sacrifice.  Kylo may have grown up with a cop for a father, but his mother had always scared him more.

“I can’t believe you’ve been dating someone for six months and you didn’t tell me!  From what Rey said, this Hux sounds like a very respectful man. What does he do? Insurance?”

“Yes,” Kylo confirmed.  It sounded like Leia had all of the information already.

“I’m happy for you, Ben—Kylo,” she said, correcting herself.  She sounded genuine now, like the mother that had tucked him in at night with a bedtime story instead of the mayor he saw on TV.  “I just want you to be happy, too.”

“He makes me happy,” said Kylo, honestly.  “And I would have told you.”

“I’m sure you would,” Leia replied in a tone that made it very clear that she wasn’t sure of that at all.  “But now that I know about him, there’s no reason why you can’t bring Hux to my birthday dinner next Thursday, is there?”

Kylo nearly dropped his phone.  He’d walked right into that, hadn’t he?  If he declined now he’d be cementing his status as worst son ever.  It was even on a Thursday—their designated movie night and the one night each week that both he and Hux always kept free.

“I’d need to ask Hux—”

“If he cares about you as much as Rey said he does, I’m sure he’d be delighted to come and meet your family, Kylo!”

Dealing with Leia was like dealing with someone that was reading the same book as you, but was always two pages ahead.  Kylo knew when to accept defeat. “Send me the details.”

“I will, sweetheart.”   _Sweetheart?_  She hadn’t called Kylo that since he’d set fire to the curtains in the den when he was fifteen.  “Don’t go yet, your father wants to speak to you, too.”

The night was just getting better and better.  “Okay.”

“I love you!”

Kylo muttered an acknowledgment but Leia was already gone.  He could hear her heels clacking against the floor as she ran away from the phone, no doubt returning back to work after she’d taken a ten minute break to speak to her son.  Leia never stopped. Kylo had never believed that one person alone could change the world, but if anyone could, it would be Leia through her sheer stubbornness and drive.

There was a cough, and then a familiar gruff voice came on the line.  “You still there, kid?”

“Yeah, Dad.  How’s things?”

“Good,” Han said.  “Your mother tells me that you got a new boyfriend.  Is he treating you right?”

“Everything’s great.”

“That’s all right then.”  There was a slightly uncomfortable pause before Han spoke again.  “Look kid, I’m no good at small talk—that’s more your mother’s thing—so I’ll cut to the chase.”

Kylo was glad for that because Han really was no good at small talk.  “Okay.”

“Now, this is all top secret, okay?  I shouldn’t be telling you, but your mother insisted and I have to admit that I agree with her.  Don’t tell her I said that though.”

“I won’t, Dad,” Kylo said with a smile.  

When he was younger, before he became angry at everyone and everything, Kylo had kept so many secret conspiracies between Han and himself.  As an adult looking back, Kylo was pretty sure that Leia knew about every single one of them, but as a child it had been thrilling to have something that she didn’t know about.  It was just his dad and him against the world.

“I’m sure you know about Leia’s re-election campaign, right?  She’s made taking on the mob a big centerpiece of her campaign and we’ve been scoring some easy wins against them lately.”

“You have?”

“Yeah, just last week I busted a dozen police officers for being in the pocket of the First Order.  Damn near arrested an entire district. Well, as expected the big shots at the First Order aren’t happy with what we’re doing and they’ve put a hit out on your mother.”

“They have?  Is everything—”

Kylo’s agitated questions were quickly cut off by Han’s easy voice.  “Don’t worry, kid. It’s not a big deal.”

“Not a big— You just said that—”  Kylo paused and took a deep breath.  He didn’t want to start shouting down the phone as it was more likely that his father would hang up than stay and answer his questions.  Han had the ability to cope with the most stressful situations at work, but had never figured out how to deal with them at home. Plus, Kylo didn’t want Hux running in and asking what was wrong.  He needed more information first. “How is a mob hit on Mom not a big deal?”

“It’s a warning, that’s all.  A real, serious hit would have been put out quietly, but they made sure we knew about this one.  Truth is, we know and they know that they won’t be able to get close enough to her to kill her. They just want her scared.”

Kylo scoffed.  “They obviously don’t know her, then.”

“Yeah, her first reaction was to go on TV and ask The General to come and get her.”

“The General?”

“The head honcho of the First Order.  We don’t know his real name or anything about him.  He’s dangerous though. And smart.”

“I’m sure he is.”

“Anyway,” Han mumbled, “the reason I’m telling you this is just to warn you to be on your guard.  We’re pretty sure that the First Order don’t know you’re Leia’s son and you’re unlikely to be in danger, but these First Order guys are slippery.  You could walk past one in the street and not know who they are.”

“I’ll be careful.”

“As much as I hate to say this, those years you spent off the radar in New York will probably keep you safe.  The name change, too.”

That was true, Kylo thought.  Apart from Rey, and possibly Finn, there was nobody in his life currently who knew who his parents were.  The guys at the gym, the other staff at the coffee shop and even Hux were unaware—although, it looked like Hux would find out at the birthday party next week.

“What about that other mob people are talking about?”  What did Maz call them? “The Can Do Club?”

“Kanjiklub,” Han corrected.  “They want to take over from the First Order and are trying to draw them out of hiding.  Causing trouble everywhere. Targeting First Order businesses. They’re too busy setting fires the First Order need to put out to care about Leia.  You’ll know them if you see them—they dress like thugs, act like thugs and basically are thugs.”

“So don’t worry but be aware?”

“That’s it, kid.  Don’t lose any sleep over it, but don’t walk around with your eyes shut either.”“Thanks for the warning, Dad.  I appreciate it.”

“S’fine,” Han said, obviously a little uncomfortable now that talk had veered away from police matters and into an honest thank you from his son.  “You needed to know. I guess I’ll see you next week with that boy of yours?”

Kylo rolled his eyes.  Anyone younger than Han would forever be a “boy” or a “kid,” even if they were a successful thirty-four year old businessman like Hux.  “Yeah, you will.”

“You’ll bring my girl with you, won’t you?”

“Of course.”  Kylo knew better than to go to a family event and leave The Falcon behind.  “I’ll even change her oil and wash her for you.”

“Glad to hear it, kid.  I’ll leave you to enjoy the rest of your evening now.  Call me, if you need me.”“I will.”

Kylo remained there, sitting in silence on Hux’s king-sized bed with more pillows than any one man needed for longer than he knew.  There were so many thoughts racing around his mind that he didn’t know which one to worry about the most. The hit on Leia? The potential of being targeted himself?   _Taking Hux home for a family birthday party?_

What did it say about Kylo and his feelings towards his family that he was most worried about that last one?

Leia and Han had been busy parents.  Han became a police captain a couple of years after Kylo had been born and he’d spent more time at the police station than he had at home.  Leia had cut short a promising career in law before Kylo’s birth due to the sad, but not unexpected early death of Anakin, and had spent Kylo’s childhood keeping Skywalker Coffee running while continuing her studies.

The adult Kylo Ren—the one that had returned from New York with a better sense of perspective and a desire to make something of his life—recognized that his parents had done what they had thought was right to keep the family afloat.  They had worked hard to provide him with a stability that they had both lacked in their own childhoods. They had made mistakes, but they were honest ones.

The teenage Ben Solo, however, had not recognized this.  He would have traded in stability and a healthier bank balance in order to spend more time with his parents.  Even those special summer days of working on The Falcon with Han and stargazing with Leia had become scarce as he aged. Eventually, Ben Solo had discovered that the only time he could get the undivided attention of both his parents was when he was in trouble.

After that, he was in trouble a lot.

Sometimes, even now, he looked at his parents and thought of all of those evenings he’d spent home alone because they were both working. Occasionally, he got the impression that his parents looked at him and thought of all those times they were called into school because he’d been in a fight, or bunked off school, or had done the million other things he’d done in the name of getting attention.

They had never talked about any of it.  Not about why he ran off to New York, what he did while he was there, or why he returned.  The whole thing was a black cloud that seemed to be constantly hanging over the three of them, and Kylo was constantly waiting for the rain to fall.  It never did seem ready to fall though—Han’s mention of New York during the phone call earlier was the first mention of it that Kylo could recall since his return.

And now he was going to drag Hux into their dysfunction.  He hadn’t taken a boyfriend home to meet the parents since Poe Dameron when he was fifteen.  Poe had been a first for Kylo in many different ways, but he’d never been as important as Hux was now.

A gentle knock on the door and a tentative push open halted Kylo’s thoughts.  That Hux felt like he needed to knock before entering his own bedroom struck Kylo as unnecessary, but heartwarming.  Even in his own home Hux was giving Kylo the space he needed and Kylo wondered how he’d managed to land such a considerate boyfriend.

“Everything okay?  You’ve been in here a long time.”

Kylo slipped his phone into his jean pocket and plastered on a smile.  It was less forced than he expected it to be. “Did I miss the end of the movie?”

“I’m afraid you did.  Gotham City is safe, at least until the sequel.”

“You can always count on the Bat.”

Hux murmured in agreement as he closed the short distance between the door and where Kylo still sat.  He climbed onto Kylo’s lap, his knees coming to rest on either side of Kylo’s hips. He loosely draped his arms around Kylo’s neck and smirked in approval when Kylo’s hands took their usual position at his waist.  Kylo was always glad to have a lapful of Hux, and he felt his mood brightening already.

“Did your mother have anything important to say?”

Hux was making sure that everything genuinely was fine, and Kylo thanked him for it.  There were so many things that Kylo could say, but he settled for only voicing the most pressing.  “She invited us to her birthday party next week.”

Hux didn’t need to know about the mob hit.  It didn’t affect him.

“Us?” Hux repeated.  “Both of us?”

“Yeah.  Next Thursday.  We’d miss our movie night, but—”

“That’s fine.  I’m happy to go to your mother’s birthday party,” Hux said. There was a small smile on his lips, as if he was happy to be introduced to Kylo’s parents.  The smile quickly faded to be replaced by something less confident. “As long as you want me to go, that is.”

“I do,” Kylo replied.  As soon as those two small words left his mouth, Kylo realized that they were true.  Despite that black cloud that covered his interactions with his family, he did want them to meet Hux.  Hux was perfect. What family wouldn’t welcome a man like Hux into the fold?

“It’s settled then.”  Hux leaned in to kiss him, his palms coming to rest upon Kylo’s broad shoulders.  “Your shoulders are really tense.”

“Yeah, talking to my parents always stresses me out a little.”

“Well, let’s take care of that, shall we?  How about a massage?”

Kylo didn’t know if massages were in Hux’s skill set, but he liked the idea of having Hux’s hands all over him so he readily agreed.  He needed a distraction from the thoughts still spinning in his mind and relaxing while Hux took care of him sounded ideal. “Sure.”

“When I come back I expect you to be naked and lying on your stomach.”

Kylo grinned.  He loved it when Hux was bossy.  “Yes, sir.”

“Don’t get cheeky, get naked,” Hux said, before disappearing into the en-suite bathroom.

Kylo chuckled to himself as he took his clothes off and neatly placed them on the dresser.  Hux, for all of his usual seriousness and composure, had an uncanny ability to make Kylo smile when Kylo needed it the most.  He lay down in the middle of the bed and rearranged Hux’s mountain of pillows until he was comfortable. He had two sandwiched between his head and his arms and waited patiently for Hux to come back.

The sound of two towels hitting one of the pillows next to his head signalled Hux’s return, and he placed a bottle of oil on the bedside table.  It seemed to be actual massage oil, as the sophisticated purple and gold label proclaimed that it was specially formulated for _sensual massages_ and contained lavender and almond oil.  Kylo didn’t know why he was surprised that Hux had massage oil stashed away in his bathroom—Hux had shown himself to be prepared for anything on several occasions—but he was.   

Although Hux had returned, he didn’t seem to be doing anything other than standing there.  Kylo had an idea why. “I don’t think masseuses are supposed to ogle their clients.”

“More would if their clients had an ass as magnificent as yours.”

Kylo’s laughter was muted by the pile of pillows he was lying on.  “I think that’s why clients usually have a towel over them. It protects their dignity. Where’s my towel? Protect my dignity, Hux.”

“What dignity?  You sit naked on my expensive sofa every morning to eat your cereal.  I think it permanently has the imprints of your balls now.”

It was so easy to fall into bantering with Hux, and so easy to forget what had been troubling him.  “Towel me,” Kylo demanded.

Hux sighed theatrically but did as Kylo requested, choosing the smaller of the two towels to drape over Kylo’s bare ass.  “If we’re going to pretend to do this properly,” Hux said, a tone of authority creeping into his voice that made Kylo shiver, “then you need to correct your posture.”

“What’s wrong with it?”

“Your arms are underneath your head.  It means that your shoulders are scrunched up and makes it impossible to massage them.  Arms straight, down your sides, with your palms facing up.”

Hux was definitely good at giving orders, Kylo thought.  He was glad that he didn’t work for Hux because if he did, he’d be too busy fantasizing about being fucked raw by his boss to ever get any work done.  That idea did have its advantages: late night meetings that would turn into getting fucked atop piles of insurance agreements, paying for his premiums via blowjobs— Kylo wished he had more fantasies he could add to that list, but Hux never had been overly forthcoming with the inner workings of his career.

Instead of fantasizing about what he didn’t know, Kylo complied with the instructions and waited.

Hux rolled the bottle of massage oil between his palms while Kylo moved and got himself comfortable again so that, coupled with the warm June evening, meant that the oil was warm enough when it dripped across Kylo’s broad shoulders.  He had rolled his shirt sleeves up to his elbows—a remarkably casual look for him—and the strength in his hands belied the delicate, thin lines of his forearms and wrists.

Hux started at Kylo’s shoulders, his fingers searching for the knots and tension there before working them loose with a pressure that bordered on painful.  Hux was good at this, Kylo quickly discovered. He was systematic, only moving on to another muscle when he was sure that the tension in the previous one was fully dispersed.  It hurt at times—some of those knots had been there far too long for it not to be a little bit painful—but Kylo quickly turned to a pile of goo under Hux’s hands.

Hux’s thumbs pressed firmly down the center of Kylo’s spine.  A shiver of electricity followed, and Hux smoothed it away with broad strokes of his palm.   Kylo knew that he had a lot of back to cover and Hux reveled in the task, treating every muscle and inch of skin with a care and attention that Kylo hadn’t felt before.

With every movement of Hux’s hands, Kylo felt more than just his physical stresses melting away.  His mental worries were being unwound by Hux’s clever hands too and Kylo could barely remember what was troubling him at all.  It was so easy to float away and empty his mind of everything but the physical world. Kylo’s world was just the soft pillows beneath his head, the strength of Hux’s hands and the scent of the lavender massage oil mixed with Hux’s spicy cologne.

It was relaxing.  It was calming. Kylo felt safe; as if the world of mob hits was in a different galaxy.

Content that his back was loose enough now, Hux moved to his feet.  Kylo was expecting the same harsh but effective treatment on his feet as his back had received, but Hux had other ideas.  Hux lightly ran his index finger down the sole of Kylo’s left foot, and Kylo yelped so loudly that the neighbors probably heard.

“Are you ticklish?” Hux asked.  Kylo didn’t need to look at him to know that he was grinning.

“No,” Kylo said, before changing his answer to a pained “yes!” when Hux stroked his foot again.

“I’ll have to remember this next time you annoy me.”  Hux was enjoying this knowledge far too much “Feet are fascinating things.”

Kylo groaned in relief when the next touch was as firm as before, and not at all ticklish.  “Are they,” he asked, in his best deadpan voice.

“Hmm.  I’m not quite sure of the details, but apparently there is a part of your foot that corresponds to practically every part of your body.  If I touch the correct part of your foot, I could ease your shoulder pain.”

“It’s more fun if you massage my shoulders, though.”

“True,” Hux agreed.  He held Kylo’s right foot in both of his hands and dug his thumbs into the heel.  “I wonder if there’s a part that is linked to the penis. One touch and an instant erection.”

“There are easier ways to get me hard than playing with my feet.”

Hux laughed.  “Oh, I’m fully aware of that.  Now, head down, shut up and let me finish this massage.”

Hux paused to get more oil, and then ran his hands up Kylo’s sturdy calves. First the right, then the left. A lot of Kylo’s gym time was spent on cardio. Running, although simple, was one of his favorite exercises. He loved hitting the treadmill with a Spotify playlist on full blast and just losing himself in the act of running.  It was monotonous, but there was solace to be found in that. Hux loved his solid calves and meaty thighs and Kylo suspected that Hux was taking longer with them than he needed to.

As well as being strong, Kylo’s thighs were ridiculously sensitive; a fact that Hux abused as much as he could.  When Hux’s hands finally reached those thighs, they started out by being as harsh and clever as they had been everywhere else.  They plucked apart the knots in Kylo’s hamstrings and left him feeling boneless.

Then they turned softer.  More teasing. Instead of concentrating on the backs of Kylo’s thighs, Hux paid more attention to the inner parts; his thumbs daring to creep under the towel that was still covering Kylo’s ass. Kylo shifted slightly as his cock started to take an interest in what Hux was doing, and he had no doubt that Hux realized why he was starting to squirm.

Those doubts were confirmed when one of Hux’s thumbs firmly pressed against his perineum.  

“Hux.”

“Yes?” Hux replied.  

“Stop that.  You’re supposed to be giving me an innocent massage.”

“My thumb slipped.”  Kylo lifted himself up so he was resting on his elbows and peered over his shoulder at Hux.  Hux’s smirk showed that he had most definitely not slipped. “Besides, I think that’s enough massaging for one night.  Do you feel relaxed now?”

“I do.  That was amazing.  You can do that again sometime.”

Hux sat down on the bed next to Kylo’s right arm.  “Now that I’ve relaxed you, do you want to have a little fun?”

Kylo smiled as Hux pressed dozens of innocent little kisses across his shoulders.  “Do I have to move? I don’t think I can right now. I’m too relaxed.”

“You don’t have to move at all,” Hux murmured, his voice low and husky as it brushed over Kylo’s ear, “I can take care of you.”

Kylo gave his answer by settling back down onto the pillows and allowing Hux to do whatever he wanted.  As the massage was over he brought his arms up again and lay his head on his hands, his eyes fluttering closed as he waited for Hux to move.  When Hux did move, he snatched away the towel that was still covering Kylo’s ass and then settled at the bottom of the bed.

Kylo wasn’t surprised when he felt Hux’s palms press flat against his buttocks before spreading them wide and exposing Kylo’s hole to Hux’s stare.  Hux was a very visual creature. He liked to be surrounded by pretty things that he could stare at—one look at his taste in interior decorating would confirm that—and his love of pretty visuals extended to Kylo, too. Hux liked to look; he liked to stare and take his fill before he acted. That had been apparent their first time together in the Chandrila Plaza, and it was evident now.

He expected to feel the tease of Hux’s elegant fingers.  He was waiting for Hux to taunt him with a press of his thumb against, but not in, his hole.  Hux liked to take his time and build the anticipation until neither of them could wait any longer, and Kylo was waiting for it to happen again.

Instead, he felt the wet and strong touch of Hux’s tongue right against his hole.  

Hux had never done that before, or shown any interest in doing it either. Now that he had, he took to his task with the same determination he showed everything.  The long and broad strokes that started at Kylo’s perineum, danced across his hole, and then carried on up his crack made Kylo shiver.  But the little licks that forced their way inside, made him scream.

Kylo couldn’t keep his hips still.  He wanted more of that tongue and strived to get it deeper and just so.  Hux was amused by his blatant want and every time he laughed, Kylo felt sharp puffs of air against his balls.  Hux seemed to take great joy out of leaving sloppy open mouthed kisses in-between his kitten licks too, and Kylo hissed in pleasure whenever he felt Hux’s teeth graze his most sensitive of skin.

He wanted to ask Hux to bite him; to leave evidence all over his ass and thighs of how Hux was completely ravaging him, but he couldn’t string the words together.  It was hard to think of anything when Hux performed magic with his tongue. Kylo idly wondered if he could come just from Hux’s tongue alone, but Hux had more planned for him.

When Hux pulled away, Kylo lazily opened his eyes.  Hux rummaged around in the bedside cabinet, sifting through the condoms they didn’t need to use anymore now they’d both been tested, until he found a new bottle of that lube he prefered.  Kylo wasn’t fussy when it came to lube, but Hux insisted on using overpriced lubricant infused with aloe vera to help protect his delicate skin.

With the lube now in hand, Hux wasted no time and immediately retook his place at the bottom of the bed between Kylo’s spread legs.  It wasn’t long before Hux had a finger inside him and Kylo sighed happily into the pillows as a second finger joined it. There was something quite decadent about lying there, doing nothing while Hux massaged, tongued and fingered him. He would have felt guilty about it, but it was quite obvious that Hux expected nothing of him other than to lie there and take it.

He could do that.  

Hux pressed against his prostate and Kylo groaned lowly into the pillows. His cock needed some attention so Kylo ground his hips down, trying to get some friction out of Hux’s ridiculously soft sheets.  Hux didn’t want him to find any though, and pressed down on the small of Kylo’s back with his spare hand to stop him moving.

A third finger had just started penetrating him when Hux’s phone rang.  Kylo expected Hux to ignore it, but instead his fingers stilled and the hand holding him down let go.  He looked over his shoulder and saw that Hux was getting his cell phone out of his pocket.

“Ignore it,” Kylo said.

“I can’t,” Hux replied.  “Not when it’s this ringtone.”

That’s right, Hux’s usual ringtone was a quick blast of Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy.”  The ringtone that had sounded, however, was one of those annoying stock ringtones that all iPhones came equipped with.  Who was assigned that ringtone, Kylo wondered?

Hux answered the call with his left hand.  The fingers of his right, although not moving, were still inside Kylo.

“What is it?  This is a bad time—  Oh. I see. You can’t—  No. I understand.”

The call was over within thirty seconds.  Hux threw the phone onto the bed and sighed heavily before slowly removing his fingers from Kylo’s hole. Kylo felt empty without them, but he ignored the pleasure building in his body and concentrated on Hux. It seemed that Kylo wasn’t the only one getting stressful phone calls tonight.

“Is everything okay, Hux?”

“No.  I have to go.”

“Is it something I can—”

“No, Kylo,” Hux said, interrupting what would have been Kylo’s offer of help. Hux picked up a towel and wiped the lube from his fingers. “It’s work. A client.  I don’t have a choice. I'm the only one that can deal with this.”

“Your clients have shitty timing.”

“That they do,” Hux said with a sad chuckle.  “I was so looking forward to fucking you.”

Kylo looked at Hux closely, and it was evident that was true.  Hux’s face was flushed and the outline of his erection was obvious, even in his tailored pants.  “Will you be gone long?”

“An hour, maybe two,” Hux said, rolling his sleeves back down as he spoke. “Will you wait for me?”

“I’ll be here.”  Where else would Kylo go?  He still felt too boneless to move after the combination of Hux’s massage and the anal play, and Hux’s bed was so much more comfortable than his anyway.

“If you really want to wait for me, you could—” Hux paused and shook his head.  “Let me show you. And remember, you can say ‘no’, if you’re not comfortable with it.”

Hux crouched down and reached underneath the bed.  Kylo didn’t know what was under there and was intrigued when Hux pulled out a small wooden box that was roughly the size of a shoe box.  Hux placed the box on the bed, opened the lid and pulled out an oddly shaped item made out of black plastic.

It was a butt plug, Kylo realized.  Hux had a box of sex toys that he kept stashed underneath the bed.  Kylo wanted nothing more than to dive into that box and see what else Hux had kept hidden from him, but all of his attention was quickly captured by the sight of Hux picking up the lube again.

Hux wanted to use the butt plug on _him_.  Kylo had never used one before, but for Hux, he was more than willing to.

“You know what this is?” Hux asked.  “You know what it does?”

“Yeah, I do,” Kylo answered, his words escaping in a breathy sigh.

“Can I use it on you?  Can I keep you open and ready for me, so that when I come back I can take it out and just slide my cock right into you?”

Kylo nodded.  He wanted nothing more.

Hux lubed up the toy.  It wasn’t that long, but it had a thickness around the bottom that made Kylo’s mouth water.  He knew he’d definitely feel it and was looking forward to the stretch. It wasn’t Hux, but it would do for now.

“On your knees, Kylo.  You can keep your head down.”

Kylo arranged himself as asked, with his ass in the air and his head still resting on the pillows.  He spread his knees slightly and longed for a firm hand around his still achingly hard cock. 

“Stay still for me,” Hux instructed.  “Remember to relax.”

Hux pressed a light kiss on Kylo’s tailbone, and then pressed the plug to his hole.  The tip of it wasn’t very big and it slid in with no problems. It felt different to a cock, of course, and Kylo tried to concentrate on the feel of the smooth, but hard plastic slipping inside and filling him up.  The flared bottom stung a little as it entered him, but Kylo could take it. It wasn’t long before the base was pressed snugly against his ass.

“You took that so well,” Hux said soothingly.  “You’re amazing, Kylo. I’m so lucky to have you.”

Kylo was about to answer, but then Hux gently pushed on the base of the plug.  It pushed it further in slightly and changed the angle so that it was pressing against Kylo’s prostate.  Kylo groaned in pleasure and felt his knees shake.

Hux patted him on the ass, jostling the plug again.  “If it gets too much for you, take it out. If you can’t stand waiting, then I won’t be angry if you come without me, Kylo.  I don’t want you to be uncomfortable.”

Kylo murmured his agreement and flopped onto his back, instantly moaning when the movement just made the plug move again.  The plug was torture, but it was the good kind of torture that made his blood sing and his senses scream. He liked it. 

Hux picked up his phone.  “You’re not making it easy for me to leave.  I’m going to be seeing you lying there naked with a plug up your ass whenever I blink.”

“Hopefully it’ll make you come back quicker,” Kylo replied.  He looked once more at the phone that Hux was gripping tightly in his hand.  “Take a photo.”

Hux was obviously surprised by what Kylo had just suggested, but his was surprise was nothing compared to Kylo’s own.  Why had he suggested that? And more importantly, why he was willing to do it? Although Kylo had sent Hux a few suggestive texts during those days when Hux was working away, they’d never progressed to nudes.  The closest had been Kylo’s shirtless post-workout selfies. This, however, was something so much more than awkward shots of Kylo’s abs.

“If you take a photo of me, you can look at it when you’re tempted to stay longer.  It’ll remind you of what’s waiting.”

“As if I could forget,” Hux said.  “You’re sure about this?”

Kylo was.  “Absolutely.”

Hux unlocked his phone and selected the camera app with slightly shaky fingers.  As he did so, Kylo took the opportunity to readjust his dick so that it was lying neatly on his stomach instead of pointing toward his thigh.  If he was going to do this, then Kylo was going to do it right. He angled his hips up so that the base of the plug was more visible and bit his lip, just as he knew Hux loved.

“ _Fuck_ , Kylo.”

When he was content that Hux had finished taking the photo, Kylo had one request.  “Can I see it?”

Hux was surprised again, but he complied with the request.  Hux walked around to the side of the bed and showed Kylo the photo he’d just taken. Kylo could hardly believe it was him. Hux had framed the photo so that most of Kylo’s face was out of shot—something that Kylo was glad of.  His lip bite was still there, though. There was a flush spreading down the center of his chest and it drew his eyes down to his equally flushed cock.  And there, below that, was the butt plug. The black of the plug was in stark contrast to the white sheets he lay on and his pale, but reddened skin.

Kylo was proud of his body.  He worked hard in the gym to get the muscles that he had, and he worked equally hard out of it to maintain a good diet and keep himself fit and healthy.  He had never, however, considered himself to be particularly attractive. He’d always wondered why a perfect ten like Hux was wasting his time with an average six like him.  But when he looked at that photo, he could see it. He felt desirable and attractive, and wondered if that was what he looked like to Hux all of the time.

Hux slipped his phone back into his pocket and grabbed his jacket.  “I really need to go now. I should have left ten minutes ago actually, but you’re far too distracting.”

“I’m sorry,” Kylo said in a tone that was anything but sorry.

Hux slipped his jacket on and headed for the bedroom door.  Before he left, he turned back to Kylo one last time. “Remember what I said, Kylo.  If the plug becomes uncomfortable, take it out. Your comfort is the most important thing to me.”

“I will.”

Hux smiled, and then he was gone.

Kylo considered going back to the living room to watch the part of the movie he’d missed, but as any slight movement moved the plug, he decided against it.  Instead he carefully pulled the sheets up and decided to sleep the time away until Hux returned. The coffee shop had been busy that week due to Kylo trialing a couple of different frappuccinos—plus, he’d hit the gym pretty hard too—so a nap sounded like the best idea.

He wasn’t sure how easy it would be to sleep with the plug still stretching him open, but it was something he needn’t have worried about.  Kylo soon fell into a dreamless sleep; a place where mob hits and family birthday parties didn’t exist.

**

He woke up to the feeling of fingers running through his hair and delicate kisses being placed upon his shoulder.  Kylo slowly opened his eyes and blinked away the last lingering tendrils of sleep that still wrapped around his brain.  He could see the first signs of daylight starting to break across the horizon and wondered exactly how long Hux had been gone.

“Sorry to wake you,” Hux whispered.

“It’s okay.  What time is it?”

“5 a.m.”

Kylo was lying on his side and Hux tucked in behind him, an arm coming to drape over Kylo’s side to hold him loosely.  “You’ve been gone nearly six hours.” Hux had said it’d only take a couple of hours before he left.

“I know.  The situation was more complicated than I had been led to believe. I’m sorry.”

Kylo was startled by a drop of water falling onto his arm.  It had come from Hux’s hair and Kylo saw that Hux’s pale skin had that slight pinkness to it that came from a recent hot shower.  He leaned back a little and wasn’t surprised when his back came into contact with the bare skin of Hux’s chest.

“You showered.”

Hux paused before answering.  “The client was a heavy smoker.  I didn’t want to come back reeking of cigarettes.”

There was something about Hux’s tone of voice that seemed a little off to Kylo, but his brain was still too sleepy around the edges to figure out what it was.  He shuffled a little closer to Hux’s welcoming arms, moaning deeply when the buttplug shifted inside him. It was as much a moan of surprise as it was of pleasure, as Kylo had forgotten all about it.

Hux, however, hadn’t.  “Are you still wearing that plug?”

“Yeah.”

“Fuck.  I thought you would have taken it out by now.”

“I fell asleep soon after you left, so I didn’t get chance.”

“I’ve known you to fall asleep in some weird places,” Hux said, “but I didn’t think you’d be able to sleep while wearing a buttplug.”

Kylo groaned into the pillow when Hux smacked his ass and then followed the action with a harsh grope.  “It’s bearable when I don’t have someone molesting me.”

“I can’t help it.  You’re lying here, plugged and waiting for me.  Can I fuck you, Kylo?” Hux murmured into Kylo’s ear, his voice dropping an octave into that sultry tone that always traveled straight to Kylo’s dick. 

“I—”

“Please?  I’ve had a really bad evening.  Let me lose myself in you.”

Hux sounded desperate and pleading; two emotions that Kylo had never associated with him before.  The redhead could be persuasive and forceful when he felt the need for it, but he never begged or sounded as forlorn as he just had.  He must really have had a rough night, Kylo thought.

Kylo wanted to turn around, take Hux into his arms, and ask him what was wrong.  That was probably a healthier solution to whatever was plaguing Hux than fucking it away.  However, now that Kylo was awake and once again aware of the plug in his ass—a plug that had only seconds ago been pressing into his prostate thanks to Hux groping him—the low burn of arousal that he’d been successfully ignoring had begun to flare up again. He didn’t need Hux to plead with him in order for him to agree; he’d wanted Hux since he’d woken up to the feel of Hux’s lips against his skin.

“Okay.”

The fingers that removed the plug were gentle, but uncoordinated in a way that Hux rarely was.  Kylo’s moans as the plug was slowly pulled out were swallowed by frenzied kisses, but there was no hope of muffling the sounds Kylo made when Hux pushed three fingers in and immediately aimed for his prostate.

“You’re nice and ready for me, aren’t you?  You’re perfect, Kylo. I don’t deserve you.”

Kylo wasn’t sure if Hux was actually speaking to him or just babbling, but either way the words had the effect of making his heartbeat that little bit faster.  

When Hux’s lubed dick entered him in one, barely restrained thrust, Kylo realized exactly how different this time was to all of their other times together.  Hux’s hands desperately clung to his hips, as if Kylo’s body was the only thing keeping Hux grounded. Hux was noisier than normal too; his usually smooth voice—eloquent even during the most wild of fucks—was breaking and ragged, his words escaping in a stream of nonsense that spilled directly into Kylo’s ear.

Kylo lifted his leg so that Hux had more room to choose his angle and Hux took advantage of it; gripping Kylo’s thigh with bruising fingers and fucking him with force, not finesse.  Kylo wished that he could see Hux’s face, but his position on his side with Hux draped against his back made that impossible. He had no leeway to lean back and instead found himself rolled more onto his stomach.

Hux had never fucked him as hard as this.  Hux was just taking what he wanted, and it was all Kylo could do to hold on and ride it out.  Maybe he should have hated it and maybe he should have asked Hux to slow down or to show him more care, but Hux’s frenzy was both contagious, and hot as hell.

Kylo knew that it wouldn’t last that much longer.  Hux had no intention of drawing it out or teasing and was focusing only on himself.  That was just another way that this time was so unusual; Hux usually prided himself on taking care of Kylo when he fucked him as he loved nothing more than feeling Kylo unravel while he was still buried deep inside him.  But this time Hux hadn’t touched Kylo’s cock, or any of those other places that he so loved to tease. 

It was unlike Hux to be so selfish, but maybe a little selfishness was okay once in a while.

Kylo took his own cock in hand and tried to match his strokes to the rhythm of Hux’s thrusts.  He closed his eyes and concentrated on all of the sensations that were surrounding him. There was the shower damp clamminess of Hux’s skin against his back and the coconut scent of his overpriced shampoo.  He could hear Hux’s harsh breath and the unmistakable sound of skin slapping against skin whenever Hux’s hips came flush against his own.

But most of all he concentrated on the twin fires that were burning.  There was Hux’s hard cock thrusting into him, erratically hitting his prostate in a rhythm he had no chance of understanding.  The other fire came from the harsh grip he had on his own erection, and Kylo’s movements were no more gentle than Hux’s were.

They hit their peaks only seconds apart.  Kylo’s groans were muffled by the mountain of pillows beneath his head but Hux’s were uncharacteristically loud and deep, as if they’d been wrenched from the bottom of his gut and forced into existence.  They lay there for a few moments, breathing heavily and waiting for their post-orgasmic highs to recede. 

Kylo pulled himself together first, but he didn’t move.  Hux had a tight grip on his waist and had buried his face in Kylo’s neck, so Kylo allowed Hux to take whatever extra comfort he needed and simply enjoyed the intimacy they were sharing.  He had no idea how much time passed like that but he treasured every second.

Finally, Hux lifted his head and placed a gentle kiss on Kylo’s neck.  “Thank you, I needed that.”

“Are you all right?”

“I am now,” Hux replied.  He kissed Kylo’s neck again and whispered three words against his skin.  “I love you.”

It wasn’t the first time Kylo had heard Hux say it, but it was rare enough that it still made Kylo’s heart swell whenever he did.  Kylo smiled as he replied. “I love you, too.”

“I know.”  

That couldn’t have been sadness that Kylo had just heard in Hux’s voice, could it?  Just as Kylo was about to ask, Hux spoke again. “You should go back to sleep, Kylo.  It’s still early. I’ll clean up.”

“I came on your sheets,” Kylo said, embarrassment causing his cheeks to redden slightly.  He’d been too concerned with jacking himself off to worry about making a mess.

“I’ll make sure the sheets get laundered later.  For now, you can sleep on my side, if you want.”

Kylo frowned.  He had a suspicion about where this was going.  “You’re not going to be sleeping there?”

“I have some paperwork to finish off, first.”

“You work too hard.”

“I know,” Hux said again.  “I’ve found myself regretting some of my career choices recently.  But, that’s for another time. You should sleep—there’s no need for us both to be tired and cranky.”

“I’m never cranky,” said Kylo, his lips breaking out into a wicked smile at the obvious white lie.

Hux kissed him one last time and got out of the bed.  “Of course not. You’re nothing but sunshine and light, aren’t you?”

“You know it.”

Kylo could hear Hux’s smile as he spoke.  “Sweet dreams, Kylo.”

Kylo wanted to stay awake and to find out what had been bothering Hux, but Hux’s bed was so comfortable and he felt so sated right down to his bones that he couldn’t bring himself to move.  He could nap for a couple of hours—allowing Hux to finish his paperwork and get his own mind in order that little bit more—and then they could discuss it all over breakfast.

Happy with his plan, Kylo drifted off to sleep.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the chapter where the minor violence tag comes in. If you want a more detailed explanation of what that means, see the notes at the bottom of the chapter.

They didn’t discuss it over breakfast.  When Kylo had woken up a couple of hours later—his body a strange mix of relaxed from the massage and stiff from the plug and rough fucking—he’d found Hux still in his office.  He hadn’t been working, however; instead he’d face planted into the middle of his laptop’s keyboard and had been snoring soundly. 

It was an unbearably cute scene to see of a man that was usually so controlled and proper.  Even in sleep Hux usually carried himself with a dignity and poise that Kylo envied, but there was none of that here.  The black robe Hux had been wearing had been falling off his shoulder, his still slightly damp hair had been curling in ways Kylo hadn’t know that it could curl, and he had been drooling all over the spacebar.

Kylo had gently removed the expensive computer and replaced it with one of the cushions on the plush armchair that dominated the corner of the room.  Hux had stirred slightly but had quickly settled back into a motionless sleep.

Kylo had left him like that and headed to work.

The morning at Skywalker Coffee had been like any other.  Hux sent him a text around 10 a.m. apologizing for falling asleep and not saying goodbye.  Kylo quickly replied, asking if Hux was feeling better after sleeping and thanking him for everything that had happened before.  Hux hadn’t replied to or read that text, but that was no surprise to Kylo. Hux was a busy man, after all.

Kylo had worked in the coffee shop long enough to be able to live in his head as he worked, and he did that all morning.  His thoughts were full of the feel of Hux around him and inside him, of Hux’s clever hands as they’d massaged his strains away and Hux’s breath against his neck as they’d fucked.  However, those thoughts competed with his worries. The phone call with his parents still weighed heavily on his mind and he couldn’t help but speculate about the million ways that Leia’s birthday party could go wrong.

Rey was due to work the afternoon and evening shift and Kylo had a million questions for her.  He wanted to know exactly what she’d told Leia about Hux and wanted to make sure that Rey and Finn had also been invited to Leia’s party.  At least then some of the attention would be diverted from Hux and onto Finn instead.

Kylo’s desire to interrogate Rey quickly died when she walked into the shop. The usual light that followed her around and burst out in smiles and optimism was gone and had been replaced by tired eyes and a blank expression.  He was pretty sure that her t-shirt was on back to front, too.

“Are you okay?” he asked as she walked behind the counter on her way to the staff room out the back.

She yawned.  “Not really. I didn’t get any sleep last night.”

“Has something happened?  Is Finn okay?”

“He’s fine.  He was sleeping soundly when I left the house.”

That was unusual for Finn, Kylo thought.  Finn had always been an early riser and the first one to volunteer if Kylo needed extra staff in the mornings; it wasn’t like him to still be asleep at—Kylo checked the clock—nearly 1 p.m.

“Did something happen last night?”

“I’m surprised you didn’t hear it—Oh wait, did you spend the night at Hux’s?”

“Yeah,” Kylo replied.  He couldn’t help but smile at the memories that flashed through his mind.

“Han could probably tell you more than I could,” Rey began to explain.  Kylo’s interest was piqued even more by the knowledge that his father was somehow involved.  “But, there was a big mob shoot out in the streets during the night. It was pretty scary to hear so many sirens.”

“I bet it was,” Kylo said, sympathetically.

Kylo thought back to the conversation with Han the night before and what he’d said about Kanjiklub trying to provoke the First Order.  Maybe that was what had happened? The First Order were well known in the area for their illegal dealings, but they were also easy to avoid if you were a law abiding citizen.  Public shootings were not their style and they did all of their violence and criminality in the shadows.

Kylo looked at Rey one more time.  She truly looked exhausted. “Are you going to be okay to work today?”

“I’ll be fine as long as I can get my coffee fix.”

Kylo grabbed a cup and set about making Rey a black coffee with extra espresso shots.  “If only you worked in a coffee shop, huh?”

“Thanks Kylo, you’re a lifesaver.”  

Kylo winced in sympathy with Rey’s tongue when she took a long sip of the piping hot drink.  Now that she was getting caffeine into her bloodstream and the color was returning to her cheeks, he thought it was time to ask her about her conversation with Leia.

“So, my mother called me last night.”

The surprise of Kylo’s words caused Rey to choke on her drink.  Kylo handed her a napkin so she could mop up the drips of coffee that had escaped her mouth.  “I’m sorry, Kylo. I was going to tell you that I’d spoken to her. You know what Aunty Leia can be like when she senses you’re keeping a secret from her.”

Kylo was more than aware of how tenacious Leia could be.  “It’s okay. I was just wondering what you’d told her.”

“I didn’t say much; just that your new boyfriend was really good to you.  And that he was rich, hot and— Okay, maybe I said more than I thought.” Rey blushed as she quickly gulped down the rest of her coffee.

“She invited us to her birthday party.  Please tell me that you and Finn are going, too.”

“We are if we can get that evening off work,” Rey said, hinting heavily.

“I’ll ask Rose and Jess if they can work,” Kylo replied, “and if they can’t, we’ll just have to shut early.”

Rey leaned across and ran her hand down Kylo’s back.  There was more comfort in that simple gesture than there probably should have been, but Rey had always had that effect on him.  “It won’t be as bad as you think.”

Although Rey had only been a young girl when Ben Solo had ran off to New York—and the ten year age difference between them had been insurmountable in those days—she had always been aware of the stresses and strains in the Skywalker family and how much worse they’d been in the Organa-Solo household.  She was one of the few that understood that there was a lot of love between Kylo and his parents, but that sometimes that love alone was not enough. Han and Leia had always been a mix of contrasting personalities that clashed more than they complimented, and Kylo was a perfect mix of both of them.

The three of them together could either be the perfect family unit, or a disaster waiting to happen.

“I wish I could share your optimism,” Kylo said sadly.

“C’mon, Kylo,” Rey soothed, “why would it go wrong?  Hux is perfect son-in-law material.”

When the full reality of Rey’s words sank in, Kylo’s brain froze.   _Son-in-law?_  For Hux to be Leia’s son-in-law, that would mean—  Kylo couldn’t finish that thought even in his own mind.  He had, in some of his more positive moments, imagined living the rest of his life with Hux.  But somehow, marriage had never crossed his mind before.

He’d never considered himself the marrying type.  Marriage meant legalities and formalities, and settling down with a mortgage and responsibilities as you slowly grew to hate your life and everyone in it.  Kylo often thought that his parents would have been far friendlier to each other if they’d never married and had kept their relationship on a more informal footing.  Han had always been a free spirit, and Leia was independent in a way that society rarely liked married women to be. They loved each other dearly, but they had always needed their space and individuality.

With his main example of holy matrimony being Han and Leia, it was no wonder that Kylo had never considered getting married himself.  As the last few months had progressed, however, Kylo had realized more and more that the relationship between himself and Hux was not the same as the one his parents shared.  It was far more functional for one, with less door slamming and nights spent in the spare room.

Just maybe, it was a relationship that could eventually grow into a marriage.

Kylo’s shock at Rey’s insinuation must have been clear on his face.  “I’m not saying you should be getting down on one knee anytime soon,” she said, “but he is pretty perfect, don’t you think?  He should reach even Leia’s high standards.”

Rey was right; Hux was exactly the type of man that Leia was going to love. He was intelligent, charming, well-dressed and had his life in order. Kylo found that the idea of his mother and his boyfriend becoming friendly was even scarier than the idea of them hating each other.  He could cope with Leia disagreeing with his life decisions, but he wasn’t sure if he could handle her supporting them.

“Don’t worry, Kylo.  We can support each other through the party and hide in the garage if we need to.”

“Yeah, let Hux and Finn deal with everyone.”

“Sounds like a plan!”  Rey threw her empty coffee cup into the garbage.  “That’s good coffee; I almost feel awake now.”

“If you need extra breaks or to go home early, let me know,” Kylo said.  She still looked a little tired, but Rey definitely seemed to have regained some of her usual energy.

“Thanks, Kylo.  You’re the best.”

Rey gave him one last smile—that quickly turned into a yawn—before heading to the back to get her apron.  Kylo made a mental note to ask Rose and Jess if they’d be willing to cover Rey’s shift next week and returned to work.  He was still worried about the party, but at least he had Rey on his side.

**

The week that followed seemed to pass in a blur, and before Kylo knew what had hit him he was sat in The Falcon driving Hux to his parent’s house.  He was glad to be driving as it gave him something to concentrate on other than the building panic that was rising in his chest.

Hux was more than aware of how nervous Kylo was feeling and was doing his best to distract Kylo from the evening ahead.  He started the hour long car ride by talking aimlessly about a movie he wanted to watch with Kylo, before resorting to singing along with the mixtape that was permanently in Kylo’s ancient car stereo.  Hux had grown to love the 1970s rock soundtrack that followed Kylo around even more than Kylo did. He wasn’t a good singer, but he gave it his all and Kylo had to smile despite his nerves.

If Hux seemed surprised by the size and opulence of the house they pulled up alongside, he hid it well.  The Falcon looked out of place next to all of the expensive and new cars that lined the curb, but it had more right to be there than any other car in the street.  Hux remained silent but he did reach over to take Kylo’s hand between his, offering silent support while Kylo got his thoughts together. Kylo wasn’t thinking about much now that they’d arrived. He hadn’t managed to progress beyond finding the courage to open the door and climb out. 

He took a deep breath, smiled weakly at Hux, and opened the door.

They walked up the front path together and hand-in-hand.  They both had birthday presents in their spare hands–Hux had insisted on bringing a vintage bottle of red that was far beyond Kylo’s wallet or knowledge of alcohol—and could hear the faint sounds of the party grow louder with every step they took.

They’d just reached the porch when Kylo stopped in his tracks.

“You’ll be fine,” Hux said with a reassuring smile.

“There’s a few things I need to tell you.”

Kylo had intended to tell Hux about his family before the party, but he’d been so preoccupied with finding the perfect clothes and worrying about everything else that it had slipped his mind.  Hux still had no idea that his parents were the mayor and chief of police, or that Kylo wasn’t even his birth name. It was time he rectified that.

“You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to, Kylo.”

“No, I need to tell you this.”  Kylo took a deep breath. “My birth name isn’t Kylo.”

Hux’s brows furrowed in confusion.  “It isn’t?”

“You didn’t think that my parents actually named me Kylo, did you?”

“Kylo,” Hux said in a serious and patient tone, “my parents named me Armitage.”

“Ah, fair point,” Kylo said with a blush.  “Well, it isn't Kylo. It’s Ben. My parents usually remember to call me Kylo, but occasionally they slip and call me Ben.  I don’t want you to be confused by it.”

“Ben,” Hux said slowly, as if he was trying out every aspect of that single syllable on his tongue.  “It suits you. I prefer Kylo, though.”

Kylo smiled.  As always, Hux knew exactly what to say to make him feel better.  He lifted their joined hands to his mouth and placed a simple kiss on the back of Hux’s hand.  “There’s a few other things I need to tell you, too.”

“What is it?”

“My mother is—”

Kylo was interrupted by the opening of the front door and the sound of his mother calling his name.

Although nearly a foot shorter than her only child, Leia Organa still had the ability to loom over Kylo just like she had when he was a small boy.  She was a force of nature that time had only hardened and Kylo was extremely glad that she was now focusing her energies on repairing Seattle, instead of trying to repair him.

She looked as beautiful as ever as she stood in the doorway, smiling softly at Kylo’s arrival.  As a young boy—back when his only troubles were permanently scraped knees and learning his multiplication tables—Kylo had always seen Leia as being a real-life princess.  She had been kind and elegant, and appeared to his young eyes like something out of a fairy tale. That feeling never really left him; not even after becoming an adult and frequently hearing her curse in a way that that would make a drunk sailor proud.

She still had an air of regality about her as her eyes quickly swept from her son, to Hux, and then back again.  That she didn’t immediately rush out to greet him stung a little more than Kylo thought that it probably should, but when she reached out to him and dragged him into a tight hug a couple of seconds later, it barely seemed to matter.  He had once thought that he was above getting hugs from his mother. Despite the difficulties that still existed between them, he now knew better.

“I thought I heard your voice,” Leia said, “so I thought I’d save you the trouble of knocking on the door.”

Kylo decided to ignore the internal voice telling him that she’d only opened the door to stop him from running away, and instead took her at her word. He stepped back out of the hug and held out his gift bag to her. “Happy birthday, Mom.”

She took it out of his hands with a small, but genuine smile.  “Thank you Be—Kylo.”

The correction was jarring, but Kylo let that pass also.  Leia was trying, Kylo realized, so he would try too. 

The sound of the old wood of the porch creaking slightly reminded Kylo that he wasn’t facing Leia alone.  He turned to Hux, eager to introduce the man and get the spotlight off himself for a moment, and instantly became worried at how pale Hux looked.  

Hux was naturally pale.  He had the type of complexion that was either bordering on translucent or was as red as a tomato.  Hux didn’t tan; he burnt and any flush of embarrassment or arousal was as easily seen as the red of his hair.  But Kylo had never seen Hux look as pale as he did at that moment. Even when Hux had been laid low by a virus a couple of months earlier that consigned him to bed for a week, he hadn’t looked this pale. Kylo expected Hux to be surprised that his boyfriend’s mother was the mayor of Seattle, but he hadn’t expected Hux to look quite as disturbed by it.

“Are you okay?” he asked quietly as he slipped a hand into Hux’s.  He was sure that Leia heard him, but she was polite enough to pretend that she hadn’t.

Hux felt as cold as ice and it took him a moment to speak.  When he did, it wasn’t in response to Kylo’s question at all.  “It’s a pleasure to meet you at last, Mayor Organa.”

Whatever had caused Hux to look so sickly seemed to have quickly passed. Hux’s voice was strong and sure, and he was smiling at Leia with that same charming smile that he used on everyone.  He still looked pale and his fingers were still like icicles, but at least he didn’t look like he was going to faint any longer.

“You too, Mr. Hux,” Leia replied.  

She held her hand out to Hux in the same manner she held it out to other politicians and business leaders.  It was incredibly hard to read Leia’s body language as she was experienced at hiding her real feelings about people, but she was obviously still sizing Hux up.  Hux seemed equally wary as he took her hand and shook it firmly, but with an obvious gentleness to his grip that he didn’t normally have.

Hux was the first to step back from the handshake.  “Please, just call me Hux.”

Leia nodded in agreement.  “I wish that I could say I’d heard all about you from Kylo, but I’d be lying.”

“You don’t need me when you have the Rey News Network,” Kylo grumbled.

Leia ignored him.  “I hear that you’re in insurance?  What’s your company called?”

Hux’s smile faltered.  “Finalizer Insurance. We’re a small company with an exclusive clientele, I wouldn’t be surprised if you haven’t heard of us, Mayor.”

“I haven’t, actually,” Leia said.  “And you don’t need to call me by my title, Hux.  This isn’t an official engagement, I’m just someone celebrating her birthday with her son and his boyfriend.  Call me Leia.”

“As you wish, Leia.  Although, forgive me if I find it difficult to separate you from your job as mayor.  You’ve rather been the bane of my existence, recently,” Hux said with a charming smile.

Hux could be very charming when he wanted to, and—thankfully—it seemed to be working on Leia as she took his comment with a smile.  “If this is about the traffic problems caused by the streetcar improvements, please direct all complaints to my assistant. I’m sick of hearing about it.”

“Guys, can we save the politics?  At least until we’re in the house?” Kylo sighed.

“Where are my manners?” Leia said, the same smile still on her face. “Please, come in. Enjoy yourselves! Oh—is that present for me too, Hux?”

“Ah, yes.  It’s a vintage that I enjoy and I hope that you will enjoy it, too.”

She pulled the bottle out of the bag and whistled when she saw the label. “Château Latour 2009.  You know your wine, Hux.  This is almost too good to drink.”

“I hoped it would meet your approval.”

Leia stepped back inside the house and gestured for Kylo and Hux to follow her.  “Well, if you’re hoping to get my approval in order to date my son, this is a good start.”

Whenever Kylo stepped into this house, he always looked around in wonder.  It wasn’t the house he’d grown up in—that had been far smaller and more understated than this one—and he still felt like a visitor.  Family photos lined the wall and Kylo knew that if he looked hard enough, he’d find a younger and more hopeful version of himself mixed in with photos of his grandfather and of his parents.  He didn’t want to see that stranger though, so he closed his eyes and followed his mother and boyfriend down the hall.

“Kylo, put the wine in the kitchen while I try and track your father down,” Leia said, sounding as authoritative as ever.  “I’m sure he’ll want to see you as soon as he can.”

She squeezed his bicep—her little hand unable to fully wrap around the limb—and smiled at him again.  Even as an adult that smile had a reassuring effect on him that never seemed to fade. Maybe it was because he’d gone so many years without ever seeing it that made it seem so special.

Leia headed towards the dull sounds of the party that could be heard drifting down the hall and Kylo led Hux in the opposite direction.  This might not have been Kylo’s home but he knew his way around it and he was glad to find that the kitchen was empty. He didn’t know how many people Leia had invited to her party—probably hundreds if he knew his mother at all—so he was glad for a few quiet moments to himself before facing the horde.

That was probably why she’d sent him to the kitchen in the first place, he belatedly realized.

Hux was quiet and stood awkwardly by the refrigerator as Kylo put the wine in the rack on the counter.  There were a variety of bottles on the kitchen table already—no doubt prepared for the party—but it was obvious that this wine was special and deserved more attention than to be shared blindly by a group of people that were already half drunk.

Still Hux said nothing.   He was staring out of the window at the immaculately kept lawn that dominated the Organa-Solo backyard, but Kylo doubted he was actually seeing anything.  Hux always had perfect posture, especially in a suit, and carried himself with authority and poise. However, as he stood there in that kitchen full of every modern convenience—half of which Kylo doubted had ever been used—he didn’t look his usual elegant but relaxed self.  No, Hux looked stiff and uncomfortable, as if he was holding some emotion inside that he was afraid of letting out.

Kylo recognized his body language easily, because it was a posture he was intimately familiar with.  For him, it was usually anger and destruction that he was holding in, and judging by Hux’s clenched fists, it might be the same for Hux.

He decided to tread lightly.  He’d never seen Hux angry, or even irritated before.  “I think my mother liked you.”

“I’m glad,” Hux replied.  He hadn’t moved and his tone was strangely flat.

“The wine was a good choice.”

“I knew it would be. Fit even for a mayor.”

Ah. So he was angry about that. Kylo ran his hand through his hair as he often did when he was nervous. He hadn't meant to keep his parents and their occupations secret from Hux, but talking about them in anyway other than begrudgingly was still alien to him.

He'd spent so long hating them and blaming them for every problem that had befallen him that now—even after reconciling with them—it was still difficult to acknowledge their place in his life. 

Han, a free spirit himself that often struggled with the constraints of his uniform, understood that better than Leia did.  He was willing to give Kylo the space he needed and allowed Kylo to control the relationship, even if that meant it would be several months between phone calls.  Leia, however, had never really understood it. To her, family was something to cling onto through both good and bad, and Kylo often wondered if she was chasing a relationship with Kylo that Anakin had never managed to have with her.

Speaking to Hux about them was an impossibility when he could barely speak to himself about them.

“I’m sorry Hux.  I really did mean to tell you about Leia.  It’s just that—It’s still difficult for me to talk about everything sometimes.  The phone call last week and the invitation to this party made things so much worse.  I knew I had to tell you, but I was nervous about everything and now I’m just rambling, and—”

Kylo’s confused explanation was cut off by the sound of Hux’s palm landing heavily on a highly polished marble counter.

“The last thing I had expected tonight,” Hux said slowly, as if he was weighing every word before allowing it to escape his lips, “was to come face to face with the mayor of Seattle.  Soon, I’ll be shaking hands with the chief of police and trying to convince him that I’m a good match for his son. Is there anything else you didn’t tell me? Do you have an uncle on the supreme court?  A cousin who is the director of the CIA?”

“Hux—”

“No, Kylo.  No excuses. I don’t care how difficult it was for you; you should have warned me.  Do you have any idea how I felt when that door opened and the fucking mayor was standing there, judging me and trying to decide if I was good enough for her precious son?”

Even though Hux was quiet enough that nobody outside of the kitchen could have possibly heard him, there was no mistaking the anger in his voice.  It was somehow scarier this way, Kylo thought. Kylo had lived with a red hot anger that burned everything it touched during his teens and his early twenties.  He understood that anger and could deal with it. Hux’s ice cold, calm and collected anger was something alien to him, however. It was unpredictable—especially coming from Hux—and he didn’t know what to say to diffuse the situation.

“Exactly how many police officers are going to be here tonight?” Hux continued.  “Is everything we do going to be scrutinized by a group of overpaid, lazy donut eaters?”

Kylo was used to irrational anger.  He was no stranger to overreacting either, but there was something about Hux’s anger that was definitely starting to seem like an overreaction to Kylo.  Leia had been nothing but warm and welcoming to Hux, but Hux acted like it had been a disaster. He hadn’t even met Kylo’s father yet and was already getting angry about the prospect.

It all seemed so out of character and hard to understand.  This was the same Hux that previously had no fear about being caught by the police when they were in his car while Kylo’s dick in his mouth, but now he was worried about the police?

Kylo couldn’t understand it.

“There’s probably only going to be my father and his old partner,” Kylo answered honestly.  “Why are you so worried about the police anyway? It’s a party. They aren’t going to be checking people’s papers and running background checks on everyone.”

“I’m not worried about the police,” Hux said defensively.

He most definitely was, Kylo thought.  There was one answer for it, of course.  It was an answer that had run through Kylo’s mind a few times; namely when he’d seen the permanent suite at the Chandrila Plaza, Hux’s sprawling apartment and the Rolls Royce.  No insurance salesman could manage to afford all of that.

“Yes, you are.  It’s because of your business, isn’t it?  It’s not entirely legal. What are you doing, Hux?  Not paying your taxes? Underpaying your employees? Money laundering?  What?”

The look in Hux’s eyes was almost enough to make Kylo take a step back, but he’d faced guys far tougher than crooked insurance salesmen in the past.  It was strange to see something other than love in those pretty green eyes though, and Kylo didn’t like it.

Hux closed his eyes and took a deep breath.  The actions seemed to center him a little, and when his eyes reopened, some of the anger they’d contained had disappeared.  “It’s nothing like that Kylo.”

“Then what is it?  Why are you so angry with me?”

“I’m not—” Hux paused, and then began speaking again.  “I’ve been nervous about meeting your parents ever since I knew it was happening. Finding out that your mother is the mayor and your father is the chief of police was simply more stress than I needed.  I’m sorry if I sounded angry earlier. That was unforgivable.”

The apology rang hollow and untrue to Kylo’s ears, but he didn’t want to push it.  Not here, and not now. They’d been alone in the kitchen for longer than Kylo had expected and the last thing he wanted was for his father or another guest to walk into them having an argument.  If Hux wanted to pretend that he hadn’t been angry with Kylo then Kylo would let him. They could talk about it later, in a more suitable location.

Kylo ignored the niggling worry he had about the legality of Hux’s life and plastered on a smile.  “Don’t worry about it.”

“I shouldn’t have raised my voice and taken my stress out on you.  I know it’s difficult for you to be here; you don’t need my irrational fear of policemen to make things worse.”

The hand that Hux slammed onto the counter only moments earlier came to stroke Kylo’s face and Kylo leaned into it, despite his misgivings.  Hux’s hand was so warm and so gentle, and when Hux stepped closer to him Kylo found himself mirroring the action until they were standing so close that he could feel Hux’s breath on his cheek.  Hux slipped his arms around Kylo’s back and Kylo leaned further into the touch, his eyes closing as he once again thought about how Hux was lying to him.

He didn’t have much time to dwell on it, however, as the sound of a throat clearing in the doorway quickly made the two men jump apart.

Leaning against the wall with his usual lazy smirk on his lips, was Chief of Police Han Solo.  There had been a time when Ben Solo had idolized his father. His most treasured toy was a toy police car because it was the same as the one his father drove, and he’d wanted nothing more than to become a cop just like his daddy.  Even now—twenty years and a name change later—the sight of his father being happy to see him was enough to lighten Kylo’s heart.

It was even enough to make Kylo temporarily forget both the situation with Hux and how awkward he’d felt about coming to the party.  “Hi, Dad.”

“You look good, kid,” Han drawled.  “Healthy. Glad to see that the Falcon is shining, too.”

Of course Han had taken a look at the car before he came to greet Kylo.  “I had to make sure that she was looking good for you.”

“I appreciate it.”  Han turned his attention to Hux.  “You must be Hux.”

Hux was slow to offer his hand—and when he did, his other hand was tightly bunched into a fist—but he smiled when Han shook it.  “I am. It’s good to meet you, Chief Solo.”

“There’s no need to be so stiff, Hux.  I’m not on the job and you’re banging my son, so just call me Han.”

Kylo thought that it was almost worth the embarrassment he felt himself just to see how red Hux’s face had turned.  “How much have you had to drink?

“Me?” Han replied, pointing to himself in mock innocence.  “I haven’t—All right, maybe Chewie and I lined up a couple of shots earlier.  You know how much I hate things like this.”

Kylo did.  Han had always been a reluctant attendee whenever Leia had parties or had to attend political functions.  Although his own job meant that he had to be as much a politician as he did a police officer, Han was far more at home drinking from a bottle of Bud with his feet on the sofa than he was at city office functions.

“Is that why you’re hiding out in the kitchen with us?”

“Your mother told me to come and say hello.  I know better than to argue with the princess.”  Han turned his attention back to Hux again. “I hope you’ve been treating Ben right.”

Hux flinched in surprise at the use of Kylo’s old name but seemed to quickly recover.  “I hope so, too.”

“He has,” Kylo said firmly.  He could see that Han was gearing up to ask further questions, and decided to nip it in the bud.  “C’mon, let’s join the party. I want to say hi to Uncle Chewie. And Uncle Luke, if he’s here.”

“Oh he’s here,” Han replied, leading his son and Hux out of the kitchen, “he’s probably trying to talk some politician into being more zen and giving up their worldly possessions.”

Kylo laughed.  “Some of his techniques work if you give them a chance.”

As they headed towards the party—father and son bickering about the effectiveness of Luke Skywalker’s unique brand of philosophy—Kylo continued to feel a heaviness in his heart.  He still didn’t understand Hux’s earlier reaction and not even the feel of Hux’s hand slipping into his could calm his mind. He’d always brushed away his questions surrounding Hux’s wealth and success, but he couldn’t brush them away this time.  The money. The long and often unexpected absences. The thought that Hux was truly too good to be true. 

None of it made sense.  Things as good as Hux just didn’t happen to him.

Kylo fixed a fake smile to his face and followed his father into the living room; the hub of the party.  When Hux squeezed his hand for reassurance, Kylo squeezed back. Not even his doubts could mask either the love he felt for Hux, or how much braver he felt for having Hux by his side.  Tonight was about making it through without running away and hiding in a cupboard until it was time to leave; he would save his doubts for another day.

**

It took hours and several pleasant conversations later for Kylo to finally admit that maybe, he’d been worried about nothing.  Although Han and Leia seemed to be constantly hovering around him—one eye always watching him as they spoke to other people—they didn’t crowd him.  The inquisition he’d expected never came, and neither did the usual disappointment that he hadn’t done more with his life. Of course, Skywalker Coffee was flourishing under Kylo’s management so that had no doubt washed away some of the disappointment, but Kylo was pretty sure that the main reason was Hux.

His boyfriend had managed to charm every person he’d spoken to.  Even Han’s old partner—a near seven-foot monster of a man that Kylo had only ever known as Uncle Chewie—had given Hux his roar of approval.  Hux was a man that radiated confidence, success and intelligence, and Kylo knew that having a man like that in his life after so many years of flings that quickly fizzled out to nothing reflected well on him.  Hux was the perfect show partner and exactly the type of man that Leia would have chosen for her son if she had been given chance. 

As Hux shared a joke with Rey about some movie that Kylo had never heard of, it was hard to reconcile that laugh with the memory of Hux angrily slamming his hand down on the kitchen counter earlier.  There was no trace of anger to be found in Hux’s easy smiles and the nerves that Hux had claimed to feel were not there either.

Kylo had always considered himself to be a pretty decent judge of character.  He had surrounded himself with nice kids back when he had been a nice kid himself, and as he’d aged and become angry at everyone and everything, he’d purposely befriended the wrong kind of people.  It had always been easy for him to get the measure of someone, and he found that people could rarely surprise him. 

Since that first meeting with Hux on a snowy January day in Skywalker Coffee, Kylo had thought that Hux was the right kind of person.  His insistence on paying for that damn cup of tea, the easy banter between them and how easily they’d fallen into the best relationship of Kylo’s life had only reinforced that.  But now, with the memories of Hux’s irrational anger fresh in his mind, Kylo couldn’t shake that nagging feeling that something wasn’t right.

The unexplained wealth. The days and nights where Hux was away and impossible to contact. The demanding clientele. If these were all signs of financial irregularities and dodgy dealings on Hux’s side, then Kylo wanted to know. They could work through them.

He didn’t want Hux to be the one person that managed to surprise him.

Kylo was so deep in his thoughts when Rey excused herself from the conversation that he barely managed to choke out a goodbye.  Hux raised an eyebrow at Kylo’s delayed reply, but didn’t question it any further. For that, Kylo was glad. He had never been a good liar—despite his best efforts—and he was sure that Hux would see right through whatever lie he would have concocted just as easily as his mother always had.

“Are you ready to leave?”

Hux’s question was accompanied by a gentle hand on the small of his back that Kylo couldn’t help but lean into, despite his misgivings.  Kylo glanced at his watch and saw that it was near 11 p.m.; a more than reasonable time for them to make an exit. They’d been there far longer than Kylo had realized.

“Sure,” he replied, smiling in that way he always seemed to whenever Hux was around.  “We should say goodbye to Leia first, though.”

“Of course.  I believe she’s in the corner, speaking to your Uncle Luke.”

She was, Kylo knew.  He’d been tracking the location of his parents all night so that they wouldn’t catch him unawares and it didn’t take long to navigate through all of the people he didn’t know in order to get to Leia.  Fifteen years ago he would have known the names of every person his parents knew—and they would have known him—but he was a stranger to most of them, now. They didn’t look like his type of people anyway.  There were too many expensive suits, smarmy smiles and false platitudes for Kylo’s liking.

Leia and Luke were in a heated discussion when Kylo and Hux reached them.  From the way Leia was over enunciating her words and waving her glass of wine around, she seemed to be slightly drunk.  Luke was, of course, stone-cold sober. Although he was a philosophy lecturer by trade, Luke’s real passion in life was the ancient religion that he practiced.  Kylo had had a little instruction in it in the past, but found it to be largely nonsense. Some of the meditative exercises had some value, but Kylo had always had the suspicion that Luke had largely been making everything up as he’d gone along.

He couldn’t criticize Luke too harshly though.  When he’d come back from New York, it had been Luke who’d given him a chance and a job.  When he’d proven himself capable of a hard and reliable days work, it had been Luke that had pushed him to take over Skywalker Coffee.  Luke had handed the keys over to him with a smile and had said that Anakin would have been proud of him for coming back and turning his life around.

They were words that Kylo knew would always stay with him.

Kylo wanted to jump into the conversation that the Skywalker twins were having, but Leia was on the warpath and Kylo knew better than to try and stop her.  He took Hux’s hand in his and rubbed his thumb over Hux’s wrist. They might be here for sometime.

“—so Han has me on lockdown.”

“It’s for the best, Leia,” Luke replied in his most calming tone of voice.

Leia scoffed.  “Not when it’s interfering with my campaign and appearance schedule, it isn’t.  Han needs to keep his opinions to himself, right Ben?”

Neither Leia nor Luke had shown any sign that they’d seen Kylo and Hux approach, so Kylo was surprised when Leia tried to drag him into the conversation.  He had no idea what she was asking him about, and knew better than to just blindly agree with a drunk Leia.

“Opinions about what?” he asked.

“Opinions about that fucking mob hit the First Order put out on me.”  Oh, she was definitely drunk if she was swearing like that. “I refuse to let my life be ruled by those mafia bastards.”

Kylo felt Hux’s hand tighten in his, and he flashed the redhead an apologetic smile.  He still hadn’t told Hux about the mob hit and he could understand how surprising it must have been for Hux to hear Leia—who was usually so articulate and pleasant during her public duties—react so angrily.  It was unnerving for Kylo to hear her dismiss the threat so flippantly, even though he expected nothing less from her. Leia had always faced harsh opposition in her political career and Kylo was not surprised to see that she was facing an actual assassination threat with the same fire that she had faced character assassinations with.

It didn’t make it any less worrying, however.

He wondered how this must have all sounded to Hux.  He didn’t know what Hux had been expecting from his first meeting with Kylo’s parents, but he was certain that a different name, a mayor, a chief of police and a mob hit had not been it.  Maybe Hux’s earlier reaction wasn’t as worrying as Kylo had first thought.

“Dad’s just doing his job,” Kylo said, deciding that a diplomatic approach was better than an opinionated one.  

Luke nodded in approval at Kylo’s answer.  Kylo found that approval more important to him than he wanted to admit.  “I’ve been saying that to her for the last half an hour,” he said to Kylo, although it was intended for Leia’s ears.

“I was supposed to attend a small business convention yesterday but Han made me cancel.  I need that vote if I’m going to be re-elected.”

“Was that the event at the Washington State Convention Center?” Hux asked.

Leia almost seemed surprised that Hux was still there.  “That’s the one. It had been on my schedule for months.”

“I was due to attend that on behalf of my organization,” said Hux, “I was very disappointed when you canceled but considering the circumstances, it’s understandable.”

“This is what I was talking about.”  It was a good job that there was barely any wine left in Leia’s glass as she probably would have showered everyone with how much she was waving her arms around.  “I disappointed people!”

Luke tried to calm Leia down.  “I’m sure that nobody thought—”

However, Leia was on a roll.  “That fucking so-called General and his mafia assholes.  I’ve faced scarier men than him; men that don’t hide behind stupid titles or are too scared to show their face.  If he thought that a death threat would stop me from standing for election or arresting every mobster scum in this city then he doesn’t know me at all.”

Hux smiled.  “I’m sure that The General won’t underestimate you again, Mayor Organa.”

Leia reached over and patted Hux on the arm.  “Thank you, Hux. But do call me Leia, please.  I’m not the mayor to you.”

Kylo wasn’t sure what made him happier; Leia’s obvious acceptance of Hux, or Hux’s obvious joy at being accepted.  Either way, it meant that the night had—despite the argument in the kitchen—progressed better than he had expected.

“Thank you, Leia,” Hux said, smiling again.  “I will try to remember that.”

Kylo decided to jump in before Leia had chance to reply.  She was a master at dragging out conversations. “We just came over to say that we’re going now.”

“Let me walk you to the door—”

“You don’t have to do that, Mom.  Stay here and enjoy your party.”

Leia looked like she wanted to argue about Kylo’s suggestion, but she was cut off by Luke.  “It was good to see you again, Kylo. It seems that the coffee shop has been thriving since you took over; I’m pleased to see that you’re doing so well with it.  I don’t think I was ever cut-out for a life of coffee.”

That was true, Kylo thought.  People didn’t really want a lecture on existentialism with their morning coffee.

Kylo and Hux said their goodbyes to Luke and Leia—Hux even allowed Leia to pull him into a quick hug—and swiftly made their way through the crowd.  A couple of handshakes with an intoxicated Han and Uncle Chewie later, and they were outside in the fresh and cool night air.

There was a relaxed slope to Hux’s shoulders as he led the way back to The Falcon, and Kylo was glad to see it.  He wanted to question Hux more about his reaction earlier, but knew that he had to do it when Hux was in the right mood.  The last thing he wanted was to argue again. The old Kylo—the one that had emerged from the ashes of Ben Solo—had been the kind of person that would purposely cause arguments and would then use the other person’s anger to justify his own.  The Kylo he was now—the one that managed a coffee shop and was in a serious long-term relationship—thankfully knew better.

“I really am sorry that I didn’t tell you about—well, everything,” Kylo said when they reached the car.

The street lighting was sporadic on Han and Leia’s street, but the moon was bright.  The moonlight looked stunning on the sharp angles of Hux’s face; it highlighted his cheekbones but threw so much of him into shadow. Kylo wasn’t much of a photographer or a lover of art, but he wanted to capture this image of Hux forever.

“It’s fine,” Hux said dismissively.  “Apology accepted.”

“I’m sorry that Leia was so—”

“Kylo,” Hux stated firmly.  He took a step closer to Kylo and placed his hands on Kylo’s shoulders, his thumbs coming to rest on the taller man’s collarbones through the cotton shirt Kylo wore.  “It’s okay.”

“You were angry earlier.”

For a moment, Hux’s expression was indecipherable.  Then it softened, and became that open kindness that Kylo was used to seeing from him.  “That was earlier.”

“I’ve never seen you be angry before.  I don’t understand why—”

There was more to be said, but it was impossible to voice his concerns when Hux was kissing them out of him.  It was so much easier to ignore that worried voice—to push it down and lock it away in a little box—and instead pull Hux flush against him, his arms circling Hux’s trim waist as slim fingers pulled at his hair.

When they finally broke apart from each other, Kylo could barely remember why he’d been worried at all.

**

Kylo never did approach Hux with his worries.  He had planned to in the days that followed, but Hux was called away on a business trip that he, once again, barely told Kylo anything about.  It had been hard to contact Hux during that trip, and it had become increasingly harder during the other trips that had littered the rest of June and bled into the months that followed.

Hux’s absences had only made Kylo more worried.  On the rare occasion that he was able to speak to Hux directly during those trips, Hux was evasive when Kylo tried to ask him about his day.  Things were always too complicated or too boring to be explained, or Hux too tired, and Kylo was left staring at his slightly yellowing ceiling while he lay awake and worried about what Hux was actually doing.

He had, in the dark of night, entertained the idea that all of the business trips were a cover for Hux cheating on him.  That was Kylo’s biggest fear. He could cope with illegal dealings—even if it would make things horribly awkward with his public servant parents—but he knew that he wouldn’t be able to cope with being cheated on.  Kylo had never really gotten over the thought that Hux was too good for him and his self-confidence was a fragile thing; Hux leaving him would crush him.

But those were thoughts that only inhabited the bleakest times of the night. In the cold light of day he didn’t truly believe that Hux was cheating on him. It didn’t help explain what Hux was doing, however.

While he was working, it was easy to put The Hux Problem out of his mind. He had too many things to think of when he was at Skywalker Coffee; from brewing coffee to balancing the books.  It was only during the quiet closing times that his worries crept back into his mind, and he found himself thinking about it again during one quiet Wednesday evening in the middle of September.

Rey was supposed to be helping him close the store, but after hearing that she had a paper for her Gender and Fandom class due the next day, he told her to leave early.  He could close the shop on his own. There was nobody in the shop other than for a group of four men that came in and ordered coffees shortly after Rey had left, so with only ten minutes left before closing time Kylo began the tedious but necessary task of restocking the sugar and cutlery.  It was a mindless task, so he quietly sang along to The Doors while he tried to wrench his thoughts away from Hux.

Hux was away again.  Kylo had slipped his phone into his jeans pocket during his last break and vainly hoped that Hux would text him, but the phone had remained stubbornly still and silent.  It was starting to feel like a mocking weight in his pocket that he could feel whenever he moved; a reminder that Hux could contact him at any time but was choosing not to.

Kylo grabbed a handful of sweetener packets and threw them into their container on the milk counter with more vigor than necessary.

It was the voice of one of the coffee drinking men that interrupted his destructive thoughts.  “This coffee isn’t very good, is it?”

There was an accent there.  Not one as smooth and polished as Hux’s, but something much coarser and rougher.  The man that had spoken—in his ripped denim and layers of black—was equally coarse and rough.  As were his three companions.

Kylo had a bad feeling about this.

“I’m sorry, sir,” Kylo said through gritted teeth.  “Would you like something else?”

“No,” the man said, shrugging off Kylo’s suggestion in a way that only annoyed Kylo further.

He watched in quiet anger when the man picked up his coffee cup and slowly and deliberately poured the contents over the previously clean floor of Skywalker Coffee.

As the coffee spread across the tiles that made up the floor, Kylo felt his anger build.  He was no stranger to awkward customers or to baseless complaints, but such a blatant show of disrespect was not something he could easily ignore.  He counted to ten, reached out to the invisible force that Uncle Luke insisted was real and always lectured him on, and tried to calm down.

“This shop is really nothing special, huh?” the man said as he allowed his coffee cup to slip from his fingers and shatter onto the floor.

The man stood up then and walked over to the milk and sugar counter that Kylo still stood next to.  He was smaller than Kylo—as most men were—but carried himself with a swagger that came from the confidence of feeling untouchable.  Kylo was sure that in a straight, one-on-one fight, he could easily take him. Kylo had dealt with punks like him back in New York and had since honed his fighting skills by sparring with his knights in the gym.

However, this guy had three friends and any of them could be armed.  Even during his craziest times, Kylo had known better than to pick a fight when he was outnumbered and potentially outgunned.  Kylo didn’t reply to the provocation, but he did slip his hand into his pocket and unlock his phone so that he could quickly call Han.  Just in case he needed to.

“Yeah,” the guy began, eyeing Kylo with a knowing smirk, “The General definitely doesn’t come here for the coffee or the decor.”

 _The General_.  Kylo’s blood ran cold.  That phone call from his parents a few months earlier came rushing back into his mind; the threat from the General and the First Order against Leia, and the reassurance from Han that they didn’t know about Kylo’s relation to her.  Was that wrong? They hadn’t been able to reach Leia—Han had seen to that—so had they turned their attention elsewhere and finally found Kylo?

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Kylo said.

The man picked up a sweetener packet and threw it over his shoulder.  “Of course you don’t. You’re a real innocent aren’t you, Kylo Ren?”

Although Kylo wore a name tag, it didn’t display his surname.  The fact that this thug of a man knew his full name was just further evidence that Kylo was in great trouble.  They’d undoubtably come for him because of something to do with The General and Kylo felt a sliver of fear cutting through his anger.  The General was a dangerous man and now he’d sent his henchman for Kylo.

“Look, I don’t want any trouble—”

“He doesn’t want any trouble lads!” the man said, calling out in wicked glee to his companions.  “Let’s hope our boy Kylo doesn’t give us any reason to make some!”

“What do you want?  Money?”

Kylo had no doubt that their motive wasn’t money—this was obviously no simple robbery—but he hoped that they would be mercenary enough to be bought off.  It was a desperate gambit, but he had to try.

“We’re not interested in coffee beans.  We’re here for leverage.”

Leverage?  This had to be in retaliation to Leia’s continuous crusade against the mafia.  There’d been another spate of arrests over recent days and she’d appeared on TV only that morning to state with confidence that the net was closing in on those in power in the First Order.  What leverage could the First Order possibly find in Skywalker Coffee unless they knew who Kylo really was?

The man continued to speak.  The arrogant smirk that had been on his face since he entered the shop had disappeared now to be replaced by a look that was far more sinister.  “Are you going to be a good boy and come with us or do we have to take you by force?”

The other three men stood up and approached Kylo.  They were coming at him from all angles; circling him like predators approaching their prey.  Kylo had been a predator before but he’d never been prey, and he found himself battling his fight or flight response.  He couldn’t see any way out if he ran—they’d undoubtably catch him as they all stood between him and the door—and he couldn’t take down four guys at once.

That didn’t mean he wasn’t willing to try, however.

He took out the man nearest to him with a well-placed forearm to the jaw. His attempt at punching a second guy was dodged and it left him open to the sharp bite of a fist connecting with his ribs.  It knocked the wind out of him, and that was all the men needed. No amount of fights in New York or sparring at a gym could have prepared him for a well-coordinated attack by four men that appeared to be experienced fighters.

Kylo was overpowered and outmatched.  He couldn’t avoid the cloth that closed over his nose and mouth, and the sweet, sweet smell that it contained quickly became too much.  He thought of Hux, of how he wished he could have he heard Hux’s voice one more time as he fell to the ground.

Then, the world went black.

**

When Kylo woke up, it hurt to breathe.  It also hurt to move in anyway or to open his eyes so he did neither.  He tried to grasp hold of the reason why everything hurt so much, but his mind wasn’t cooperating with him. Every time he thought that he’d managed to grab hold of a memory that would shed some light on his situation it disappeared and was replaced by another flare of pain.

He had no idea how long he lay there as he tried to piece things back together.  He didn’t know where he was, how he’d got there, or how long he’d been there. He barely knew his own name.

Eventually the haze began to lift a little and the outside world crept in.  He was lying on something cold and hard and he suspected it was a concrete floor.  The pain wasn’t an all-consuming block anymore either as he could now feel it individually; in his shoulder, his arm, his side and his face.

Flashes of memory were starting to come back to him, too.  Hux being away and waiting for messages from him. Going to work.  Serving customers. Sharing a joke with the delivery man. Sending Rey home.  The four guys that—

He groaned.  It was those four guys.  They’d come in, talked about the General, cornered him and then assaulted him.  He wasn’t still in Skywalker Coffee though—even without opening his eyes he knew that—and not even a hospital bed felt as hard as the floor he was sure he was lying on.  Did that mean that they’d kidnapped him? Hadn’t they said that they would?

Even though his head was still pounding and was running as slow as his eight-year old laptop, Kylo forced his eyes to open.  It took several seconds and rapid blinks for the world to be brought back into focus, and when it was, there wasn’t much to see. 

The room was dark and he couldn’t see further than a couple of feet.  His initial thoughts had been right though; he was definitely lying on the floor. There appeared to be a narrow window set high up on the far wall, but it had been covered over and only the smallest spot of moonlight was filtering through.  From the positioning of the window and the slight damp and musty smell that hung in the air, it appeared to be a basement.

Kylo was more than familiar with basements as he’d spent most of his time as a teenager in one.  He’d commandeered the basement in Han and Leia’s old house when he’d turned fourteen and had only left it when there was food on the table.  

But now wasn’t the time for reminiscence.

Whatever they’d used to knock him out was slowly clearing out of his system and his brain was gradually returning to full speed.  He was in a dangerous situation, of that he was sure, but he wasn’t still entirely clear on what was happening to him and why. The questions that he’d had in the coffee shop came racing back into his mind, and until he knew the answers to them he knew that he had no chance of getting through whatever he’d found himself in.

The First Order thugs that had attacked and kidnapped him had spoken of The General and had called Kylo _leverage_.  He had thought that they had targeted him because he was the son of the mayor that was causing them so much trouble, but there was something about that scenario that didn’t sit quite right with him.  They had called him Kylo Ren—not Ben Solo—and shown no sign that they had known about Leia. It was possible that they were just low level henchmen that had been sent to complete a task without fully knowing why, but there was something else that was beginning to spark in his mind.

A few months ago, when Han had first told him about the assassination threat against Leia, Han had said that the First Order were easy to miss. They slipped into the background and went about their business quietly. There had been nothing quiet about how those guys had cornered Kylo in his brightly lit, still open coffee shop that anyone could have walked into. Everything about them—from their behavior to their clothes—grabbed attention, and that was not the First Order’s way of operating.

He coughed into the concrete beneath his head and winced in pain when the action jarred his ribs.  They were broken, probably. Now that his mind was clearer he took stock of the other pains that were echoing through his body and was relieved when none of them seemed to be serious.  The ribs were definitely the worst. The pains in his arm and ribs flared when he cautiously pushed himself into a sitting position and gingerly leaned back against the wall behind him.

It hurt to move and the white spots of pain hadn’t fully disappeared from his sight yet, but sitting up was better.  He felt less helpless like this and more ready to face whatever was coming.

He didn’t have to wait much longer.  

The door—which was surprisingly closer to the corner he was sitting in than he’d thought—opened with the squeak of a door that hadn’t been used much.  The room was suddenly filled with a blinding artificial light from the level upstairs and it bought Kylo’s headache back to a level even worse than before.  He couldn’t focus at all, but thankfully the door soon shut and the strong light was replaced by the dull glow of the single, bare lightbulb that hung from the ceiling.  

There was a loud and piercing scraping sound as the person who’d entered dragged a chair from the corner of the basement and set it in front of Kylo. He heard, more than saw, the person sit down and then the room fell into silence. Kylo wasn’t going to break that silence, however, he was going to wait for the other person to speak first.  He was going to listen intently to everything that was said in the hope that he could figure out what they wanted, and then he’d figure out how to get out of there.

Finally his eyes were able to focus again after being assaulted by the bright light from upstairs, and he looked at his captor.  He was pretty sure that it was the same guy that had spoken to him in the coffee shop. He wore the same leather vest and ripped jeans, and his hair was the same straggly mess.  

When the man finally spoke, his distinct accent confirmed that Kylo was right.  It was the same guy. “Nice of you to join us in the land of the living.”

“I’m sorry, I’m usually an early riser,” Kylo slurred slightly.  Whatever they had knocked him out with must have still been in his system more than he thought.  

“Delphi is sucking his meals through a straw now, thanks to you.  I’m almost impressed. You had more fight in you than I expected.”

 _Delphi._  That must have been the guy he socked in the jaw.  He filed the name away in his mind for future reference.  Kylo took a small amount of delight out of the knowledge that one of his attackers was in a worse state than he was, but that delight was short lived.  He quickly became worried that there might be some payback owed, but hoped that being kidnapped and thrown into a bare and cold basement might be considered payback enough.

When Kylo spoke next, he purposely slurred his words more than he needed to.  He didn’t want the guy to realize he was as aware of his surroundings as he was.  “Why am I here?”

“Have you not figured that out yet?”

“If it’s because of my mother, you’re wasting your—”

“Your mother?” the man interrupted, leaning forward in his chair, “why would we be interested in your mother?  She someone special?”

Kylo tried to hide his shock.  Did they really not know who his mother was? He had assumed that this was all an act of revenge for Leia’s aggressive anti-organized crime policies, but that didn’t seem to be the case.  It could be that the guy was lying to him or was low enough in the hierarchy to truly not know what was happening, but neither of those scenarios seemed plausible.  

He felt his heart rate pick up.  If this had been revenge against Leia, then maybe he could have done something to help his circumstances.  Being kidnapped as revenge against her meant that there might be ransom demands; and that meant time. It meant time for Kylo to figure out a plan, and more importantly it meant time for Han and the police to find him.  Did they even know he was missing? But now, he didn’t know if had any time to concoct a plan. Maybe this guy was going to kill him right now.

He was flying blind in a completely unknown situation and he felt like things had become ten times more dangerous than they already were.

“She has money.  I thought that’s what you were after,” Kylo said.

It was a bad lie—especially as the man had already confirmed in Skywalker Coffee that he didn’t want money—but Kylo had to provide a reason why his mother might be of interest.  If they didn’t already know that his mother was the mayor, then he knew that he couldn’t tell them. 

“Oh, you’re more valuable to us than any fortune your mother might have stashed away.”

“I don’t understand.”

The man looked at him with suspicion.  He obviously didn’t believe that Kylo was unaware of whatever his value was and he continued to stare at Kylo until Kylo felt even more uncomfortable that he already did.

Then, the man changed from open suspicion to mocking laughter.  “You really don’t know, do you? I was told that you didn’t, but I didn’t believe it.”

“Know what?”

“What do you know about The General?”

That seemed like a loaded question, and one that he didn’t know how to answer.  He had forgotten that the man had mentioned the General in Skywalker Coffee before attacking him, but it was surprising that the mob boss had now become a topic of discussion.  If the man sat before him in this dank cellar truly was part of the First Order—and truly, what else could he be?—then he was here on the orders of the General.

Maybe Kylo could finally find out what was happening.

As Kylo’s knowledge of The General was lacking and purely superficial, he decided to tell the truth.  “He’s the boss of the First Order, isn’t he?”

“He is,” the man confirmed.  He stretched his legs out and continued to look amused by the situation.  “That’s it?”

“Is there something else I’m supposed to know?”

“You don’t know his real name?  Or what he looks like?”

“I didn’t think that anyone knew that.”  As far as Kylo was aware, not even Han did.  

“You surprise me yet again, Kylo Ren.”  The man was definitely enjoying this conversation.  It put Kylo on edge, and he felt his palms begin to sweat. “I thought that you would know, seeing as though he’s become such a regular in your shitty coffee shop.”

The man had said that before, hadn’t he?  Kylo hadn’t known what he was talking about then, and he didn’t know what he was talking about now, either.  “I have a lot of regulars. If one of them is The General, then I don’t know which one he is.”

“Well, let me describe him to you.  You’re a clever boy, I’m sure you’ll figure it out eventually.  Now, let me see,” the man leaned back and tapped a finger against his temple as he pretended to think.  He was mocking him, Kylo knew. “He’s roughly your height but a skinny little bitch. Always wears expensive suits.  Has a stupid accent that he thinks makes him sound intelligent.”

Kylo searched through his still-drugged and sluggish brain to try and find a regular that fit the description.  He couldn’t think of anyone. Several businessmen were frequent patrons of Skywalker Coffee, but he didn’t recall any of them having strange accents.  The only person Kylo knew that wore suits and had a strange accent was Hux, but— 

“And he has red hair.”

None of this made sense to Kylo.  Was this man, a First Order thug that had attacked and kidnapped him for reasons that were still unknown, trying to say that the General was _Hux_?  It couldn’t be true, the thug was just trying to screw with him.  Kylo would have known if the man he was in love with—a man he’d taken home to meet his parents—was a deadly mafia boss.  

There would have been signs.

Kylo pushed the thoughts of Hux’s unexplained wealth, his business trips and lack of communication out of his mind.  

“Yeah, you know who I’m talking about, don’t you?  The General is that red-head you’ve been fucking for the last nine months.”

Kylo refused to believe it.  Hux had his secrets—and there had been that unexplained flash of anger at Leia’s party—but he wasn’t the head of an organized crime syndicate.  Kylo knew Hux and knew his heart; it wasn’t the heart of someone who could coldly order murders or strike fear into an entire city. 

But Hux being The General meant even more than that.  It would mean that it had been Hux that had ordered the hit on Leia and that he’d then stood in her house to wish her a happy birthday.  If it was true, Kylo had put both Leia and Han at risk when he’d taken Hux there, and while he was locked away in this basement they remained at risk.  Hux could get past Leia’s security whenever he wanted to now; not even Han would think to stop him or search him. 

There was another thought that Kylo didn’t want to address.  If the thug talking to him was First Order and Hux was The General, that would mean that Kylo had been attacked and kidnapped on Hux’s orders.  And wasn’t that just the thought that stung the most? Was this Hux’s way of ending the relationship, of disposing of him and silencing him forever?  Kylo supposed that this was how things worked in organized crime; anyone that outlived their use or could threaten to reveal secrets was simply removed and never heard from again.

“You don’t believe me, do you?”  Kylo didn’t answer. “Did you never question how he could afford a Rolls Royce?  Or why he disappeared on you all of the time? Maybe he fucked all of the common sense out of you.”

“You’re lying,” Kylo stated calmly.

He didn't feel calm, but he couldn't lose his temper or allow his emotions to take over.  His situation was too dangerous for that. He knew that his only chance of escape was to remain calm and in control.  Whatever game this thug was playing, Kylo refused to join.

The man shrugged.  “The only person lying here is you.  It won't help you, you know. The General has been making a fool out of you for months. How much do you know about him, really?”

The answer was, unfortunately, not much.  Sure, Kylo knew how Hux liked his eggs cooked, that he always put his left shoe on first, and detested disorder of any kind, but he knew so little of Hux’s past.  He had never thought to question Hux about why he’d moved to Seattle on his own at nineteen or about his childhood, because Kylo had never wanted to talk about his own past, either.  Kylo had been content to live in the present and the future—as had Hux—and he’d never stopped to think that Hux had been hiding a significant part of himself away.

It all made too much sense, though.  It would explain why Finalizer Insurance had no internet presence or office that Kylo had ever been able to find and why Hux was always so dismissive of Kylo’s questions about his working day.  The radio silence on Hux’s business trips was easier to understand when he was on mob business instead of at business conferences.

The more Kylo thought about it, the more he began to believe it.

There always had been a part of him that had been suspicious about Hux, it had just been stifled underneath the weight of how happy Hux made him feel.  He’d ignored every sign and buried his head in the sand because he’d so desperately wanted to believe in Hux, and his relationship with him. Had any part of those wonderful nine months they’d spend together been real?  

Kylo’s head was still spinning from the aftereffects of the drug he’d been knocked out with and the pain from his ribs.  He couldn’t think straight and felt like he was going around in circles. He wanted nothing more than to close his eyes and wake up next to Hux, sprawled out on his sofa with all of this as only a figment of his overactive imagination.

Kylo closed his eyes, but when he opened them he was still in that cold cellar.  “So you kidnapped me because you think I’m dating The General?”

“See?  I knew you were a clever man.”

If it was true—and Kylo was still desperately trying to tell himself that it wasn’t—then Hux had ordered it to happen.  For what purpose, Kylo could only guess. Hux had to know that Kylo hadn’t found out who he was, and the leering man sat before him was adamant that Leia wasn’t involved, so that left only one answer that Kylo could think of. 

“And now he wants to dispose of me, I suppose?”  How cowardly, sending his henchmen to kidnap him.

“The General?” the man asked.  He sounded confused. Kylo didn’t like that sound.  “The General doesn’t know you’re here yet.”

“Then why—”

“Like I said, Kylo Ren, _leverage_.  You’re a weakness; one I hope to exploit in order to make The General do whatever I want.”

“So I’m a pawn in a power play?  Is that what’s happening here?”

“This isn’t a power play,” the man said.  There was a slightly manic gleam to his eyes again, and Kylo was reminded that despite the calm tone of their discussion so far, he was trapped in this small basement with a very, very dangerous man.  “This is a takeover. The First Order have run this city for too long and it’s time for some new blood. This is Kanjiklub’s town now.”

 _Kanjiklub_.  He knew that name from somewhere.  It was hard to think when his thoughts were still so disorganized, but Kylo finally dragged the name out of his memories.  Han had spoken about them on the phone. Maz had mentioned them too, all of those months ago. And hadn’t Rey been late to work one day because a gunfight between Kanjiklub and the First Order had kept her awake half of the night?  They were the First Order’s rivals; a new organized gang of thugs that were trying to take over the town and—

Kylo ran a shaky hand through his hair—his ribs exploding in pain as he did so—as it all fell into place.  This guy wasn’t from the First Order; he was from Kanjiklub. Kylo kicked himself for not recognizing it sooner.  This guy and the gang of thugs that had accompanied him to Skywalker Coffee could never have been First Order guys as they were too noisy, too public and too poorly presented for that.  

And his attackers being from Kanjiklub meant one more thing; it meant that Hux hadn’t ordered the assault.  This wasn’t Hux trying to dispose of him or blackmail his mother. Kylo felt a immense wave of relief that someone in a position as dangerous as his shouldn’t have been able to feel.

“By kidnapping me you’re hoping that, what?  The General will leave the city to you?”

“The General is a stubborn man.  We’ve taken some of his turf and whacked some of his foot soldiers, but he won’t take us on.  He doesn’t want a war,” the man spat. “We’re hoping that a few photos of your pretty, battered face might make him reconsider his position.  Our guy on the inside says he’s very, very fond of you.” 

So he really was leverage.  Kanjiklub were planning to use Hux’s feelings for Kylo against him so that they could start a turf war.  It sounded like the plot to an episode of _The Sopranos_ , but Kylo took some solace in the fact that Hux’s feelings towards him truly were genuine.  It renewed the hope inside him, too. Maybe he couldn’t rely on Han and the police finding his location and saving him, but Hux would see Kanjiklub’s threats and come to rescue him.

Wouldn’t he?

“What would The General do to get you back safely, huh?  What are you worth to him?”

Those were the same questions that Kylo was thinking about.

The man stood up and returned the chair to the same corner of the room that it had been in earlier.  He slowly walked back over to Kylo and despite the drug that was still slowing down his reactions, Kylo felt on edge.  There was a purpose behind the walk and he soon discovered what it was when the man kicked him in the face. His nose took the brunt of the impact, and Kylo had broken his nose enough times in New York to recognize that it was broken now, too.

His vision fogged over from the blow, but it was still clear enough to notice the flash from a smartphone camera.

“Perfect,” sniggered the man, “let’s see what The General does when this photo drops into his inbox.”

Kylo was too busy trying to regulate his breathing to care when the man climbed up the stairs and then turned out the sole light that hung from the ceiling.  There were a few seconds of blessed darkness before the door at the top of the stairs was opened and the painfully bright light from upstairs came rushing in again.  Kylo wanted the light to stop; it hurt too much to open his eyes.

“That kick was from Delphi, by the way.”  With that, the man stepped through the door and locked it behind him.

This time, the darkness was welcomed.  Kylo slumped against the wall behind him and tried to order his thoughts, but it was an impossible task. How could he even begin to process all of the information he’d just found out? His Hux—the man he’d fallen hopelessly in love with—was The General.  Now Kylo had become a vital piece in a mob war and his life was in danger because Hux seemingly felt the same way about him. Kylo didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at how shitty his luck was.

He wanted to think about it more, to process the new information and try to figure out a plan of action, but it was an impossible task.  His brain was still too muddy and his body—especially his nose and ribs—simply hurt too much. He allowed his eyes to close and spent the next hours drifting in and out of consciousness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kylo is kidnapped by four men. There is a fight where Kylo elbows one of them in the jaw, but they soon overpower him. He's kicked in the face later. There are descriptions of the pain he feels from this, but it's not explicit or gory. Kylo isn't seriously harmed.


	5. Chapter 5

Kylo didn’t think he’d be able to sleep—surely the danger and pain would be too much for that—but he must have drifted off at some point.  When he become fully aware again it was to strong slivers of sunshine poking through the curtain that covered the solitary window and to a plate of food by his feet.  It was just a sandwich that looked like it had been made with month old bread, so Kylo stretched out one of his long legs and kicked the plate away. That someone had been able to come in and leave the food without him noticing was deeply worrying to him; what else could they have done while he was unaware?

Maybe the fact that he had slept so soundly shouldn’t really have been a surprise though.  He felt truly exhausted; it was the type of exhaustion that burrowed down into his bone marrow and it made it a struggle to even keep his head up.  He wanted to crawl into the corner of that cold, dark cellar and let the darkness take him—pain and danger be damned— until he felt more like himself.  He knew, however, that he couldn’t. He leaned heavily against the wall behind him and grunted in pain at the effort. His ribs hurt like hell and he was sure that his already crooked nose was now in pieces across his face.

As he sat there in the dark of that room, his eyes fixed on the small beams of light that couldn’t quite reach him, his mind began to wander.  It wasn’t long before the conversation he’d had with his captor came back into focus.

Hux was The General.  Kylo had been kidnapped due to an ongoing, one-sided war between two organized crime rings.  Kylo was nothing but a pawn in a game that was so much bigger than he was, but he was a pawn that had an importance beyond his lowly stature in the game.  He was considered to be of great importance to The General, and he hoped that was true.

Kylo hoped that Hux knew he was missing and that Hux was panicking because of it.  He could just see Hux now; pacing around his expensive apartment, or angrily gripping the plush upholstery of his Rolls Royce as he tried to mask his emotions behind his usual calm exterior.  It might have been petty of Kylo, but he hoped that Hux was suffering due to the knowledge that Kylo had been kidnapped because of him. He felt that Hux deserved it for lying to Kylo for so long.

The little ray of light he could see showed that it was late enough in the day for Skywalker Coffee to be open and he wondered what scene his kidnappers had left behind.  There had to have been a small sign of a struggle, even if was just that single spilled coffee and cup. He doubted that they would have taken the time to lock up and turn out the lights before leaving.  He was sure that by now his disappearance would have been noted but he wondered when it had been discovered. The only person Kylo might have spoken to during the night was Hux and it seemed that he was too busy being The General to bother with contacting Kylo.  He realized that unless Maz walked past the coffee shop on her way home after closing up the Takodana bar, it was unlikely that anyone would have known Kylo was missing until the morning. It was Rey’s turn to open the store that morning, and—

_Rey_.

Even since Kylo had woken up in that basement, he’d felt strangely calm. Sure, he was scared and worried about what would happen to him, but it was a fearful calm that meant he tried to think about his situation instead of banging against the door and screaming for his release.  But the thought that sweet and innocent Rey could have been the one to find out he was missing, panicked him more than his own situation did. 

Despite having been very young when a misguided Ben Solo had ran away to New York, Rey had missed him greatly.  When he’d returned as a repentant Kylo Ren, she had refused to speak to him for several months. Of all the people that could potentially stumble across the scene of his kidnapping, he hoped against hope that it wasn’t Rey.

Thoughts of Rey inevitably led to thoughts of Han, Leia, Luke and everyone else in his life.  Leia would blame herself, just like she always had done whenever Kylo had screwed up. That had been the routine of his troubled teens; he’d fuck up, Leia would blame herself for being too busy and would promise to do better, but would then never actually change anything.  Rinse and repeat for several years until he ran away.

Han had always been more pragmatic; concerned with action rather than psychoanalyzing who was to blame.  He would be now, too. Han would use every resource available to him—both official and unofficial—in order to find Kylo.  The chief of police would be so buried in reports and information that there’d be no space for emotion. And wasn’t that just another familiar routine from Kylo’s adolescence?

Leia and Han had never known how to deal with him and his problems, but they had always done their best.  They had been misguided, but earnest. They had argued with him, but they had always loved him.

For the first time in a long time, Kylo found that he wanted to go home to his parents.

He didn’t want Rey to worry.

He hoped Anakin was watching over him.

And despite his anger, he desperately wanted to see Hux again.

**

The next few hours passed in silence.  The only thing that marked their passing was how the slim sliver of sunlight that escaped through the covered window moved across the floor.  Kylo managed to keep himself calm by relying on Uncle Luke’s meditation techniques and he found that a few of hours of trying to find Luke’s invisible force not only soothed his fears, but also cleared his a mind a little.

So when the gunfire started, it was a stark shock.

At first it sounded far away, as if it was happening next door or across the street.  It steadily came closer and became more frequent, and Kylo soon realized that whatever was happening was happening above him.  

Was it Han?

Were Kanjiklub tearing themselves apart?

Kylo didn’t know, but he was afraid to find out.  

The basement was devoid of anything that he could use to defend himself and with his ribs in their current condition he knew that he would be practically defenseless anyway, even if he did have a weapon.  All he could do was sit there as a firefight happened above him and hope that whoever won would be on his side.

The thuds of bodies hitting the floor and the screams of those that had been shot surrounded him.  His heart began beating so fiercely that he worried it would burst through his chest and that feeling only became worse when he noticed that his heartbeat was as rapid as the automatic gunfire that filled the room above him.

Eventually, the gunfire slowed.  The shots became quieter and further apart, as if there were less assailants and those that were left were choosing their shots.  He started counting them; one, two, three, four—

Then the door to the basement opened.

The light that rushed into the basement was too much for Kylo’s eyes to take, momentarily blinding him.  He tried to keep his eyes open and to fight against the onslaught of light, but it was a fight he couldn’t win.  He had to look away and close his eyes—if only for a moment—even if it meant that whoever was approaching him could do so without his knowledge.  He was vulnerable anyway; being able to properly see the person coming down the stairs wasn’t going to change that.

Kylo heard each wooden step creak as the person descended.  They were taking their time, and as his eyes slowly began to adjust he was able to make out their silhouette.  As far as he could tell, they had a gun in their hand.

He didn’t have time to dwell on that, as the person seemed to finally see his huddled form that was hiding away in the corner.  The person took the last few steps at a jump and ran across the room towards him, clearing the space between his corner and the stairs in three long strides.

He closed his eyes and waited for the gunshot that never came.

“Kylo?  Thank god I found you.  Are you okay?”

That voice and its clipped accent could only belong to one person.  

Hux.

Kylo forced his eyes to open fully and found Hux staring at him; concern and fear etched into the lines of his usually calm and stoic face.  It wasn’t that, however, that made Kylo back away from Hux. No, it was the blood splatter on Hux’s usually pale skin and spotless clothes, and the fire in his ordinarily cool green eyes.  

Hux reached out with his left hand and gently brushed away a lock of hair from Kylo’s face.  It was a gesture that Kylo usually took great solace in, but this time he didn’t have the opportunity to feel Hux’s warm fingertips brush against his skin.  Instead, all he felt was the smooth and impersonal touch of Hux’s leather gloves. He’d never seen Hux in gloves before.

Then he realized.

It wasn’t his Hux that was kneeling next to him.  It was The General.

Kylo hadn’t wanted to believe that Hux really was The General, but as he took in Hux’s disheveled and bloody appearance, and the gun that was still in Hux’s right hand, he had no choice but to finally admit it to himself.  His boyfriend was the head of the biggest and most dangerous organized crime syndicate in the state, and he had no idea if he was going to be rescued or executed.

Hux put the gun down and gently placed his right hand on Kylo’s cheek.  Kylo could feel dried flakes of blood being brushed away from his skin. “They’ve made a mess of you, haven’t they?  I’m so sorry, Kylo. This is all my fault.”

A couple of gunshots rang out while Kylo composed himself enough to answer.  “I have a million questions for you.”

Hux frowned but nodded.  “Later. Getting you out of here is more important.”

“So you’ve come to rescue me?”

Hux was looking over Kylo’s body—no doubt looking for obvious injuries—but stopped in confusion at Kylo’s question.  “Of course I came here to rescue you. Why else would I be here?”

“I thought you might have come here to silence me, _General_.”

Maybe it was stupid to provoke a dangerous man like Hux, especially as he still had a gun within easy reach, but Kylo’s mouth had always had a habit of sometimes working quicker than his brain.  He was definitely his father’s son in that regard, at least.

“Don’t call me that,” Hux snapped.  He continued looking over Kylo for injuries.  “You of all people, should never, ever call me that.”

“Why?  Am I special?”

“Of course you’re fucking special,” Hux said, frustration evident in his voice.  He lifted Kylo’s shirt and frowned again when he saw the bruising there. “Are your ribs broken?”

“Probably,” Kylo shrugged, trying hard not to wince when the action made his side feel like it was on fire.

“You could be bleeding internally,” Hux said, more to himself than to Kylo. “You need to see a doctor.”

“Probably.”

Hux sighed and ran a gloved hand through his messy hair.  “I know that you’re angry with me and you have every right to be.  But please, let me make sure that you’re okay. I do lo—”

Hux’s sentence was cut off by the tall and imposing figure of Phasma as she came to stand in the doorway and shouted down to him.  “Everything has been cleaned up, boss. We’re ready to leave if you are.”

_Cleaned up?_  “Does that mean that the people who kidnapped me are all dead?”

Hux paused for a few seconds before answering.  “Yes.”

Kylo wasn’t sure if the lump in his throat was from the relief that his captors were all dead, or distress that his boyfriend had been responsible for it.  He found that he was having to reassess every single thing he thought he had known about Hux. Hux had always been the calm one in their relationship, the one who calmed down Kylo’s increasingly rare flashes of anger with a gentle touch of his hand or a small smile.  He was the one who preferred romance movies and only tolerated Kylo’s love of violent action movies because he knew it made Kylo happy. 

But Kylo had gone to bed with a cold-blooded killer.  He’d been touched by Hux’s blood stained hands. He’d been complimented and soothed by a mouth that had ordered murder after murder, and he’d told his deepest fears to someone that had terrorized a city.

And, despite all of that, seeing the honest and desperate concern on Hux’s face still made his heart swell.

“Phasma,” Hux shouted, not removing his eyes from Kylo’s bruised ribs, “get Mitaka.”  When he saw Kylo’s obvious worry at someone else joining them, Hux explained further. “He’s our doctor; I want him to check you over.  He’s a good man.”

“There’s good men in the mafia?” Kylo scoffed.

“I—  Yes, yes there are.  Mitaka doesn’t kill people.”

“Unlike you.”

“Kylo—”

“Boss.”  It was Phasma, shouting down from the top of the stairs and with obvious agitation in her voice.  “We need to leave. Now.”

It didn’t take long for Kylo to realize what the source of her agitation was as the sound of several police sirens broke the uneasy silence.  Hux heard it too, but was doing his best to ignore it.

“Boss!   _Hux!_  Those sirens are coming here, we need to be gone before they get here!”

Hux didn’t answer her.  Instead, he tore his gaze away from Kylo’s battered ribs and looked into Kylo’s eyes.  He looked as exhausted as Kylo felt and Kylo realized that his kidnapping must have really taken it out of Hux as well.  He felt some of his anger melt away.

“You should listen to her,” Kylo said to Hux.

Hux shook his head.  “Not until I know that you’re okay.”

“ _Hux!_ ” Phasma shouted.  The sirens were so loud now that it was becoming difficult to hear her.  “They’re going to be here any minute!”

“Go, Hux.  You’ve done enough.”

Hux still looked like he wanted to argue, but finally he acquiesced.  Kylo’s choice of words were purposely harsh and they seemed to have had the required effect as Hux looked at him one last time with guilty eyes.  Hux leaned forward, as if he was going to kiss Kylo goodbye, but then seemed to reconsider. Instead he picked up his gun and slowly got to his feet.

Hux was halfway up the stairs before he turned back to Kylo.  “I never meant for any of this to happen, Kylo. Please believe me.”

Then he was gone.

There were a few, uneasy moments where Kylo knew that he was in the building alone, but it wasn’t long before it was full of heavy footsteps and forceful shouting that could only come from well-trained police officers.  Kylo pushed thoughts of Hux out of his mind and waited patiently for the police to find him.

It only took a few moments.

“Get the medics!  And the chief! He’s down here!”

The calm of the basement was soon destroyed by the sounds of several people rushing down the stairs.  There were armed police and medics of course, but at the front of the line was his father.

“Ben!”Kylo was pretty sure that it wasn’t protocol for the chief of police to go rushing into a situation without it being secured first, but when Han dropped to his knees next to him and embraced him, Kylo clung back in a way that he hadn’t since he was seven-years old.  The pain from his ribs was excruciating, but he didn’t care.

Han pulled back but he didn’t let go.  He’d never been the best at sharing his emotions, but his relief was evident as he gently stroked his son’s cheek with his thumb.  “You gave us all a scare, kid. I’m glad you’re okay.”

“Thanks for finding me, Dad.”

“Yeah, well, the little gunfight here was a dead giveaway,” Han replied, an uneasy but genuine smile crossing his lips.  “I knew it had to be you causing trouble that big.”

“Chief Solo, sir.”  It was one of the medics.  “We need to check him over.”

“Right,” Han said, moving to the side to allow the medics room to attend to Kylo, “we gotta let the docs work their magic.  Besides, I should call your mother; she’ll kill me if I don’t.”

“Definitely call her.  She’s scarier than any mobsters.”

“Damn right she is.”  Han pulled out his cell phone, but before he made the call he reached over and squeezed Kylo’s hand.  “I’m no good at this kind of stuff—you know that—but, I’m glad we got here in time. We’ve all been so worried.  I don’t know what we would have done if— Well. We don’t need to think about that now. Glad you’re still with us, kid.”

As the medics saw to his ribs and nose—and Han had an emotional phone call with Leia—Kylo fought back the emotions that swirled around inside of him.  Han’s stilted but genuine words had touched him deeply and the strength of that added to the confusion and anger he still felt at Hux was all too much.  He didn’t know if he wanted to scream or cry so he decided to do neither; instead he locked everything away and concentrated on the pain from his ribs. That pain kept him centered and he wrapped himself in it.  

Physical pain he could deal with. 

He couldn’t even begin to deal with the emotional pain that Hux had caused him.

When he was finally stretchered out of that basement and loaded into the waiting ambulance, he found his mind start to drift away.  The medics had injected him with painkillers which were finally doing their job. He let them take him away and the last thing he saw before he drifted away into a dreamless sleep were the red and tired eyes of his father.

**

Thankfully, the hospital gave Kylo little time to think.  First came the diagnosis of his injuries—three broken ribs, a broken nose and a concussion—and the treatment needed to set him on the path to recover. That was quickly followed by an emotional reunion with a tearful Rey and a barely held together Leia.

His mother had faced so many hardships and sorrows in her life, from the death of the mother she’d never met and the father she barely knew, to the stresses and strains of her marriage to Han and a life raising a troubled son. She had survived the slings and arrows thrown at her by her political opponents and she had done it all with a grace and fire that was usually only seen in fairytales.

So it was the sight of Leia’s brown eyes—so similar to his own—ringed red with unshed tears and a lack of sleep that nearly broke Kylo.

She was blaming herself.  Leia, Han and the police were all working on the assumption that Kylo had been kidnapped because of his relation to Mayor Organa and her anti-organized crime policies.  He knew that he should clear up that misunderstanding and tell them the truth. He hadn’t been kidnapped because he was Leia’s son, but because he was The General’s lover.

As the doctor finished telling Kylo about his treatment—something he was barely listening to—he concentrated on the feel of his mother’s hand in his. She gripped onto him tightly, like she was afraid that to let go would be to lose him again. He wanted to reassure her and tell her that none of this was her fault, but he couldn’t find the words.

He hoped that they would come, eventually.

Finally, the medical staff were happy that they had done all they could and left Kylo alone with his family and a lot of information that he’d barely listened to.  If anyone asked a question he couldn’t answer, he’d blame the concussion. Han had ducked out half an hour ago as the shootout between the city’s two biggest criminal gangs had left the chief of police with a mountain of paperwork and it left Kylo with just Leia and Rey.

Rey had made a trip to the vending machines at some point during his diagnosis and had bought one of every sugar infused product on offer.  She was stress eating her way through it all; just as she always had since she was a kid. Kylo quickly glanced between the two women at his bedside—the two most important women in his life—and felt tremendously guilty for all of the trouble and worry that he’d caused.

The silence in the room was oppressive.  All Kylo could hear was the occasional beep of whatever machine he was hooked up to and the incessant rustling of the candy wrappers Rey was munching through.  He could tell that everyone had so much to say, but nobody knew how to start. Leia would be processing her words and trying to find the perfect thing to say, whereas Rey would be trying to unravel the several hundred thoughts that were a jumble in her mind.

Kylo, on the other hand, just wanted something, _anything_ , to break the silence.  There had been too much silence over those hours he’d spent in that basement, he couldn’t cope with anymore.

Perhaps inevitably, it was Rey who finally put her thoughts into words first. When she spoke, however, it was to ask the worst question she possibly could. “Where’s Hux?”

“Do you want me to call him for you?” Leia asked.

“He’s out of town.  Big business. He wouldn’t be able to come back today anyway, so I don’t want him to worry.  I’ll call him tomorrow.” 

The lie slipped out before Kylo had even thought about what he was saying. As he heard himself adding layer and layer to it, it sounded so false to his ears.  Leia and Rey would obviously hear the lie too, wouldn’t they?

“If you’re sure,” Leia said, squeezing his hand again.  “I think he’d want to know as soon as possible, but you know him better than us.”

He had thought that he knew Hux almost as well as he knew himself, but the last twenty-four hours had shown that to be very, very false.  He forced an uneasy smile onto his face. “Yeah. I have you guys to look after me anyway.”

“Yep,” Rey said through a mouthful of Oreos, “we were so relieved when the call came from Han to say that you’d been found.  I was so scared when I got to the shop this morning and found that you were missing.”

He’d been worried that it might have been Rey that had discovered his kidnapping and now that he knew that was true he felt even worse.  It was bad enough that Hux’s profession had dragged Kylo into this—it was unforgivable that it had made such an effect on the people Kylo loved.

“I’m sorry, Rey.”

“It’s not your fault, Kylo,” she said, forcing a smile onto her face.  Even now, she was trying to cheer him up, “I’m just glad you’re back with us.”

Leia let go of his hand and reached across the bed to lay a hand on Rey’s arm.  “We all are. But maybe it’s time to put the sugar away, now.”

Rey looked at the empty snack wrappers that covered the table next to Kylo’s bed and blushed with embarrassment.  “Maybe it is.”

Rey was still picking up candy wrappers when the door opened and Han walked back in.  He looked exhausted, Kylo thought. His father had always had a boyish charm that—despite his age—had never left him.  That couldn’t be seen now, however, and for the first time it hit Kylo that just maybe, his father was just as mortal as everybody else.  Han ran a slightly shaky hand through his lank and greasy hair and perched on the edge of Kylo’s bed. His shoulders slouched and everything about his posture screamed that he was about to drop, but his eyes were smiling.  Even if the rest of him wasn’t.

“Hate to do this to you kid, but can you answer a few questions?”

Leia frowned at her husband.  “Can’t this wait? The doctors have only just finished with him.”

“It’s okay,” Kylo replied.  “I don’t mind answering.” The questions were inevitable, and Kylo would rather get them out of the way as soon as possible.  If nothing else, it’d break that uncomfortable silence.

“We think we have a pretty good idea of what happened,” Han said, “but I have a couple of questions.  When those guys cornered you in Skywalker Coffee, did they say anything to you first?  What did they say to you when you were in that basement?”

It wasn’t a question Kylo was expecting, and it put him on edge.  “What do you mean?”

“Did they say why they kidnapped you?”

“It was because of Leia, wasn’t it?” Rey asked. 

“That’s the idea we’re working from,” Han agreed.  He flashed Leia an apologetic smile before continuing on, “but you were kidnapped for at least twenty hours and we didn’t hear anything about it.  If they’d kidnapped you to scare Leia and get her to back off, then why was there no contact?”

Leia appeared to agree with Han’s thought processes.  “It doesn’t make any sense. And how did they even know who you were, anyway?  You’ve never been part of my political career and you haven’t been Ben Solo for years.”

“So we’re wondering if they dropped any hints about their game plan to you,” Han finished.

Kylo took a deep breath.  Should he tell the truth? Should he tell Han that his instincts were right, that he hadn’t been kidnapped to threaten Leia and that they hadn’t known who he was?  Han, and the entire Seattle police force, had been hunting The General for years—Kylo could answer all of those questions in one easy sentence.

He didn’t owe Hux anything.  Sure, Hux had saved him, but it was Hux’s fault that he had been in that situation at all.  He’d spent nine months of his life on someone that had been lying to him at every turn. Hux deserved to have his true self and his crime empire exposed, didn’t he?

“They didn’t say anything,” Kylo lied.  “I never knew why they kidnapped me, I just assumed it was because of Leia.”

There had been a time when lying to his parents had been as natural as breathing, but now it left him with a cold and empty feeling that lodged itself in his chest.  Despite his anger at Hux, he couldn’t bring himself to tell the truth. Telling them what had truly happened would mean admitting, once again, that he’d fucked everything up.  Kylo found that it was easier to speak the lie, than to say the truth.

Surprisingly, Han and Leia took his words as face value.  They’d never been that trusting of him when he was younger.  “Well, it was worth a shot. Do you know anything about why the First Order decided to attack Kanjiklub while you were there?”

Kylo shook his head—not a wise idea while he was still feeling the effects of the concussion.  “No. Is that what all of that gunfire was about?”

“Yeah.  You were lucky that we arrived when we did as we scared off the shooters that were still shooting.  We think The General was there, so it could have been far worse.”

“Thank god you got there in time,” Leia said.  She leaned over and placed a gentle kiss on her husband’s cheek, just like she always used to do back in the days when Ben Solo was young enough to find such shows of affection to be highly embarrassing.

Rey smiled.  Even as a small girl, she’d found Han and Leia’s outbursts of affection to be cute.  “It was really lucky.”

“Luck’s got nothing to do with it, Rey,” Han insisted, a spark of mirth returning to his eyes, “we’re just that damn good.”

Leia rolled her eyes, but she was smiling.  “Sure you are. And if The General or whatever is left of Kanjiklub think that this is enough to stop me from coming after them then they’re mistaken.  I want them to pay for this.”

“Calm down there, princess.  We’ll catch the rest of those crooks, I promise. Just don’t antagonize them anymore until we’re ready, okay?”  Han stood up and placed a kiss on Leia’s forehead before turning back to Kylo. “That’s enough questions for now. You just concentrate on getting better, huh kid?”

Han patted him on the shoulder before saying his goodbyes and leaving the room again.  

“We should leave you to get some rest,” said Leia.  “You’ve had a long day and need your sleep.”

“I’m okay,” Kylo replied through a yawn.  He was feeling immensely tired, but he wasn’t ready to be left alone with his thoughts yet.

“No arguments, Ben.”  He may have been twenty-nine years old, but when she wanted to, Leia could still make him feel like he was five.  “You need your sleep. Come on, Rey.”

Rey picked up half of the candy that was left and shoved it into her pockets. The other half she graciously left for Kylo. “Sleep well, Kylo. Try and stay out of trouble.”

“I can’t promise anything,” he replied with a smile.

Leia looked at him one last time.  Her hair was falling out of the braided bun she wore it in, her clothes bore the creases of someone who had slept in them and her eyes seemed to be having trouble focusing, but she still looked like a princess to him.  “We’ll be back in the morning.”

It didn’t take long for Kylo’s jumbled thoughts to come crashing back into his mind once he’d been left alone.  He found himself replaying conversations he’d had with Hux and then analyzing them for signs of who Hux really was. Had Hux hidden himself that well, or had Kylo just been too blind to realize what was really happening?

He started questioning himself, too.  He had no doubt that if Hux had introduced himself as the leader of the First Order during their first meeting, that Kylo would never have become as enthralled by him.  He would have offered Hux refuge from the snow not through kindness but through fear, and that fear would never have disappeared long enough for Kylo to fall for him.

But what if Hux had admitted he was The General after a few months? What if Kylo had found out after he’d fallen in love, but before Leia’s life had been threatened?  Would he have walked away from Hux then, when it would have been easy to turn a blind eye to Hux’s criminal activities in return for continuing their relationship?

Kylo didn’t know.  

Maybe he deserved the pain he was feeling—both the physical and the mental—for being dumb enough to fall for Hux’s perfect boyfriend routine. Without knowing, he’d put Leia in grave danger by literally driving The General to her door and Hux had no doubt picked up snippets of the police’s operations against the First Order.  He’d given the General all of the access and information he could have needed.

He had started to think that he could build a life with Hux—a happy forever after.  But in reality, Hux had been lying to him from the start.

**

His dreams that night were vivid in a way that they never usually were.  It might have been the effect of the cocktail of drugs the doctors plied him with or it might just have been a sign of the turmoil that his mind was still in.

He dreamt of Hux, of course.  They were together in Skywalker Coffee, sharing a pot of tea just as they had on the first night that they’d met.  It was more than just a scene from a memory, however. Kylo could taste the tea and feel the cold of the snow outside, but above all he could sense Hux. His cologne, the sound of his breath and the very way he disturbed the air around him all seemed frighteningly real.

Hux looked just as beautiful as he had that evening.  This was how Kylo remembered him—impeccably styled in an expensive suit, his hair loosely gelled away from his face and with a gentle, yet clever smile on his lips. Hux laughed at something Kylo didn’t know he’d said, and Kylo laughed too. It was so easy in the dream.

Kylo never wanted to leave it.

But like most of Kylo’s dreams, things didn’t remain easy for long.  Hux reached into his jacket pocket to try and pay for that damn tea again and suddenly he changed from the charming Hux that Kylo had thought he knew so well, to the blood soaked General that Kylo had met in that basement.  It wasn’t a wallet in Hux’s bare hand; instead it was a gun and he had a gloved finger poised on the trigger as he pointed it at Kylo.

Kylo heard himself pleading with Hux, but the redhead merely laughed. When Hux pulled the trigger, it was like the dream fell into slow motion. Kylo saw every little twitch of Hux’s finger, he saw the recoil of the gun, and watched in horror as the bullet inched closer and closer.  He couldn’t move. He could only stand and wait for the bullet to reach his heart as Hux’s mocking laughter rang around the empty shop.

When Kylo woke up from the dream—his skin sweaty and his breathing heavy—it was to the thought that he wasn’t alone.

He opened his eyes expecting to see his mother or a nurse, but the room was empty.  The panic that the dream had caused slowly drifted away as his surroundings came into focus.  He was in a hospital room. Hux wasn’t here.

Hux was unlikely to ever be here again.

He knew that he needed to sleep more, but the dream had rattled him too much for him to fall back asleep that easily.  Instead, Kylo concentrated on the slow rhythm of his breathing and stared at the beige ceiling above him. The room was caught in that magical time between night and day, dark and light, and the air felt thick with the promise of a new day.  

He pulled himself up to a seated position, ignoring the bursts of pain that echoed through his ribs, and wondered if he’d be allowed to go home.  He didn’t want to spend another day in hospital, caught between his self-destructive thoughts and well-wishes of his visiting family and friends.

But he didn’t want to go home; there were too many memories and too many traces of Hux there.  There were tins of Hux’s favorite Earl Grey in the kitchen, his pomade in the bathroom cabinet and some of his shirts hanging in Kylo’s wardrobe.  They’d watched countless movies while relaxing in the living room, had discussed their plans for the day ahead while getting ready in the bathroom, and had fallen asleep together in each other’s arms in the bedroom.  Kylo wasn’t ready to face those memories.

He wasn’t ready to face Skywalker Coffee yet, either.  It would forever be the place that he met Hux, and would always be the place where his kidnapping started to unravel their perfect world.

Kylo glanced around his hospital room and was glad of how impersonal and sterile it was.  He didn’t want to be there, but at least it didn’t contain anything that would stir up any painful memories.  The only thing in the room—other than for the hospital equipment and the basic furnishings—were the snacks that Rey had left for him.

He wasn’t surprised to find that Rey had mainly left the snacks that she didn’t like, but he was surprised when he saw a piece of paper poking out from behind a bag of Cheetos.  He was even more surprised when he picked it up and saw that it was a neatly folded five dollar bill. Rey wasn’t the type of person that would neatly fold anything, let alone money, so as he carefully unfolded it he wondered where it had come from.

He quickly found his answer when he saw the neat and distinctive writing that decorated the bill.

_I’m sorry._

It was Hux’s handwriting.

Hux had written those two, short words besides the portrait of Abraham Lincoln that graced the front of the bill, but they meant so much more than what they actually said.  It had been Hux’s insistence on paying for that first pot of tea—and Kylo’s equally stubborn insistence not to accept the payment—that had brought them together. They’d had their first conversations while arguing over that payment and Hux had used it as an excuse to ask Kylo out on their first date.

Choosing to write his message of apology on a five dollar bill was more than just a plea for forgiveness from Hux; it felt like a goodbye.

Kylo lay down again with the bill still tightly held in his hand.  He had thought that never seeing Hux again was the best, and safest, option.  But now that it was seemingly becoming his reality he didn’t know if it was what he wanted at all.  Hux may be a dangerous criminal that had been lying to him from the start, but he was also the man that made Kylo breakfast in bed, soothed his anxieties and sometimes laughed at Kylo’s bad jokes until he cried.

Had all of that been a lie, too?

Kylo didn’t know and it was doubtful that he ever would know.  Hux would forever be the career criminal that was simultaneously using him and was head over heels in love with him.  And that was the worst part. Hux saying goodbye in this way meant that Kylo would never find out if Hux had ever truly loved him.

He didn’t know how long he lay there, clutching the five dollar bill so tightly that the folded corners dug into the skin of his hand.  

He fell back asleep eventually though and much to his relief if he dreamed that time, he didn’t remember it at all.

**

Kylo was back in New York.

It felt strange to be back there again.  Kylo may have been in a completely different borough and leading a completely different life to when he was there previously, but New York was still New York.  It had a vibe and a personality that permeated through the entire state and not even an expensive family home in the Hamptons was immune to that.

Kylo had arrived there earlier that morning.  It was already bitterly cold—as Novembers in New York often were—and he was glad when his Uber finally reached the cottage that Han and Leia had bought a few years earlier.  It was supposed to be for family vacations during the summer, chosen for its pool and proximity to the beach, but Kylo never had been a sunbather.

No, he was hiding out in the cottage so that he could avoid Seattle.

It was the week of the Seattle mayoral elections.  Leia was running for reelection against her main rival, Wlihuff Tarkin, and so much of her campaign had been based around her victory against the organized crime syndicates that had once held Seattle in their iron grip.  Kanjiklub had been largely decimated after the shootout following Kylo’s kidnapping, and it was widely believed that the First Order’s most senior bosses had also died in that incident.

There had been no First Order activity since that day.  Their businesses—both legal and illegal—had all ceased trading, their networks disbanded and the veil of fear they’d cast over Seattle had been lifted.  The police had never been able to formally identify the roles of some of the deceased First Order members and those that lived refused to talk. Officially, the police considered the First Order to be finished and they were working on the assumption that the still unknown General was amongst the dead.

Han didn’t believe that.  He thought that The General was too cunning and well-prepared to have charged into the gunfight himself and although he was no longer actively working the First Order case, he refused to close the file on The General.  He was glad of the peace that had descended on the city, however, so he was willing to let the investigation remain dormant as long as The General stayed underground; especially during Leia’s campaign.

In the days that had immediately followed his rescue, Kylo had constantly asked Han about the investigation.  He had been able to hide his interest behind a desire to see his captors named and brought to justice and Han had never suspected his true motive.  He had hoped to see a sign of Hux—a whisper from a First Order operative, a crime that bore The General’s fingerprints, a speeding ticket, anything.

But there had been nothing.  

When Kylo had been released from the hospital a couple of days after his kidnapping, he had driven The Falcon to Hux’s street and waited.  Hux’s car had never come, and there had been no sign of life in his apartment, either. Finally, after seven hours of listening to the same compilation tape of 1970’s rock, he had gathered the courage to check the apartment using the key Hux had given him months earlier.

It had been empty.

Hux’s cell phone had been cut off shortly after.

It was like the man had never existed.  

All Kylo had left were his memories, a few Hux-sized dress shirts that still hung in his wardrobe and a couple of photos he’d taken of Hux when he hadn’t been looking.  Why hadn’t he taken more photos? Why hadn’t he asked more about Hux’s pre-Seattle life? How could he have dated Hux for nine months and have so little to show for it?

The cottage had been cold and empty when Kylo had first arrived, but it hadn’t taken long for the rooms to heat up and feel full of life again.  He envied the cottage, really. He’d been trying to feel warm and full of life for two months and still hadn’t managed it. Skywalker Coffee had been a refuge from the destructive thoughts that had begun to occupy his mind again, but it was still full of memories of Hux.  There were times—even when Kylo was rushed off his feet with more orders than he could remember and more paperwork than he could count—when a single glance at the wrong table would bring his world crashing to a halt because he could remember Hux sitting there. One of the few photos he had of Hux showed him standing at the shop counter and talking to Rey as he ordered a drink. Kylo found himself looking at it more times than was probably healthy.

It had been Leia’s idea for Kylo to come to the cottage.  Leia had been remarkably understanding of his wishes and had tried to downplay the ‘victory’ against the First Order, but as the fight against organized crime had been such a large part of her campaign, he understood that she could only downplay it so much.  Skipping town for the worst of the campaigning and the election itself hadn’t been something he’d considered, but as soon as Leia had suggested it—and Rey and Finn had confirmed that they’d look after Skywalker Coffee—he’d jumped at the idea.

They had managed to keep his kidnapping out of the press and had instead reported it as a turf dispute between two mobs that had been broken up, and ended, by the police.  Kylo was glad of that. Only a handful of people knew the truth of what happened and that was how he wanted to keep it. Even without his involvement being known, he didn’t want to hear about how the First Order had been defeated; it just made him think of Hux.

It had been difficult to tell everyone that he’d split up with Hux.  When he’d told Rey, she’d wanted to track Hux down and fight him for leaving Kylo while he was still battered and bruised from the kidnapping.  Han had—in the most uncomfortable and stuttering way that was so typically Han—asked what had happened and Kylo had found his mouth running away with a lie that his brain had never agreed to telling.  He’d concocted a story about Hux having to leave the US for an indeterminate amount of time due to his sick mother and had felt a mixture of relief and guilt when Rey had canceled her plans to punch Hux in the mouth.

The lie was convenient but it was still a lie and it weighed on him heavily whenever Leia enquired about Hux or the health of his mother.  She wanted to help, of course, and it took a few weeks for Leia to finally realize that the subject of Hux was not to be raised. Hux had only met her once, but he had managed to charm his way into her heart and she was almost as disappointed in the failure of the relationship as Kylo was.

That was another good reason to be away from her during the election. She’d hired Poe Dameron of all people to help with some aspects of her campaign and had done everything she could to engineer meetings between him and Kylo.  Leia had always loved Dameron and had been supportive of the puppy love teenage relationship he’d had with Ben Solo, but it was a relationship that the adult Kylo Ren did not want to revisit.

His mind, and his heart, was still too full of Hux.

The kitchen in the cottage didn’t have a coffee maker, but it did have a functional kettle and that was all Kylo needed to get his last caffeine fix of the day.  Although he was a barista by trade, he wasn’t above drinking instant coffee when there were no other options. He took his coffee into the lounge, propped his feet up on the coffee table, and cracked open one of the books he’d taken from Skywalker Coffee.  He didn’t have many plans for his time in New York.  He’d packed a couple of books and his running shoes, but he was mainly hoping that the quiet and solitude would help him clear his head.  

He'd managed to read two paragraphs of his book when there was a knock at the door.

Kylo didn’t know who would be knocking on the door of the cottage at 9 p.m. on a Sunday, so when he put his book down and walked towards the front door it was with a small amount of trepidation.  The holiday home next door was owned by Amilyn Holdo, an old college friend of Leia’s, and Leia had contacted her before Kylo had left for New York to let her know that he would be staying there. Amilyn had said that she would be taking a short break there too, so he had been expecting a visit from her but it did seem a little late for a neighborly visit.

The glass in the front door was opaque so Kylo could see nothing of his visitor other than their shadow.  It looked to be one person and the figure was tall and slender enough to be Amilyn so he relaxed slightly.  Nobody knew he was there; his visitor could only be a welcoming neighbor.

Kylo opened the door, ready to greet an old friend of his mother’s, and was instead confronted by his own recent past.

His visitor was Hux.

It wasn’t quite the Hux that Kylo remembered, though.  The Hux that Kylo had known had been polished until he shone—his suits had always been perfectly fitted and cost more than Kylo’s car, his hair had always been impeccably styled and kept at a manageable length, and his handsome face had been permanently clean-shaven.  He’d carried himself with a quiet confidence that had been intoxicating; it had made people pay attention to him but hadn’t been overwhelming or borne from arrogance. 

This Hux, however, was none of those things.  

Maybe it should have made Kylo feel better to see his own inner turmoil so clearly present in Hux’s face and demeanor, but it didn’t.  He had spent the last two months hoping that Hux was suffering as much as he was and taking solace in that imagined pain, but now that it was standing before him he realized that the cure to his pain wasn’t the pain of others.

“How did you know where to find me?” Kylo asked, his voice quiet for fear of breaking the moment.

“I still have a few contacts,” Hux replied dismissively.  “May I come in?”

“That depends on why you’re here.”

Hux easily read the words that Kylo didn’t voice.  “I just want to talk and to explain.”

Being alone in a house in a quiet neighborhood with someone that had committed several murders was not a clever idea—even Kylo knew that—but he opened the door and stepped aside for Hux to enter, all the same.  

Hux remained there, hovering in the hallway until Kylo led him into the kitchen.  He busied himself with making a hot drink for Hux and found himself brewing a cup of tea, just like he had countless times before.  Hux remained silent and looked around the room—pointedly looking everywhere but at Kylo—and it gave Kylo time to glance at Hux.

Even during those rare lazy days where they’d spent the entire time in Hux’s apartment and never stepped out into the fresh air, Hux had always dressed smart.  Hux’s idea of relaxed had been a pair of chinos and a slightly less formal shirt than normal, whereas Kylo would have been curled up next to him in a pair of sweats and a slightly fraying tank top.  Seeing Hux standing in the kitchen in a pair of jeans and a sweater was not a sight that Kylo had ever expected to see. 

Nor had he expected to see the beard that covered the lower part of Hux’s face.  It suited him, Kylo had to admit, but it looked alien on Hux’s usually smooth skin.  Kylo longed to reach out and run his fingertips through it and he wondered how it feel.

He stirred Hux’s tea with slightly more force than was necessary.  Those were not the type of thoughts that he wanted to have about Hux; not now, or ever again.

Kylo picked up Hux’s tea and led him into the living room.  He didn’t say anything to Hux as he did so, and was surprised when Hux dutifully fell into step behind him.  The Hux he had once known wouldn’t have followed without asking a question or throwing out a sarcastic quip, and his continued silence started to unnerve Kylo even more.  

He placed Hux’s cup next to his own rapidly cooling cup of coffee and gently put his book to one side.  Hux hovered for a few moments, before taking a seat on the sofa next to the one that Kylo had obviously claimed for himself.  Kylo refused to speak first, so he sat back and slowly sipped on his coffee, hoping that he radiated a calm that he definitely didn’t feel.

Eventually, Hux spoke.  “I want to begin by apologizing.”

“For anything specific, or just for the whole fucked up situation?”

Hux’s eyes narrowed slightly, but he ignored the petulant tone in Kylo’s voice.  “Both. I truly never meant for any of it to happen.”

“But it did.”

“But it did,” Hux repeated.  “I also wanted to thank you.”

“For what?”

“For not telling the police about me, or my involvement in your rescue.”

“How do you know that I didn’t?”

“You don’t evade the police for as many years as I have without having friends on the force,” Hux explained.  

Of course.  That was the type of man that Kylo was dealing with, wasn’t it? Someone that had a network of ‘friends’ that spread across Seattle, feeding him information and allowing him to always stay one step ahead.  Kylo wondered if Hux had used any of those spies to find out more information on him after they’d started dating.  
“I didn’t do it for you,” Kylo said spitefully.

Hux looked down at his hands.  The usually well manicured nails were now ragged, and his smooth skin showed signs of being picked at.  “No, I didn’t think that you had.”

“Is that it?  Is that all you came for?”  Kylo knew that he was being rude, but he couldn’t help it.  His father had always had a tendency to push away difficult conversations and it was something that Kylo had inherited.  Once again, the thought that he shouldn’t be pushing Hux like this flashed through his mind, but he quickly dismissed it.

Why would Hux have apologized if he was only there to kill him?

No.  After a few minutes of reading Hux’s body language, Kylo was pretty certain that murder was not on Hux’s mind.  The man looked defeated—broken even—and was no threat to Kylo. At least, not physically; emotionally was an entirely different matter.

“I came to explain.”

“What is there to explain?  You lied to me from the first second that I met you.  You put a hit out on my mother—”

“I didn’t know she was your mother,” Hux interrupted, “and I canceled it as soon as I knew.”

“Thank you,” Kylo replied, his words dripping with sarcasm, “that was very kind of you.”

“Did you not hear what I just said?”  Hux was agitated now, and with that agitation came some of the old fire that he’d once always had.  That was better, Kylo thought. He didn’t like this apologetic Hux. “I called off a hit because of _you_.  I allowed my feelings for you to dictate how I ran my business.”

Kylo raised his eyebrows at Hux’s use of the word ‘business,’ but didn’t reply.  Instead he sat back and let Hux finish the monologue that he’d started.

“The First Order had become as successful as it had because of me; my drive, my focus, and my leadership.  I didn’t get distracted by anything and I cut out all personal attachments from my life because they made me weak.  And then you came along.”

“You’re the one that came into my coffee shop.  I didn’t go looking for you. You’re the one that kept coming back, too.”

“Fate is a strange thing,” Hux said.  “The only reason why I came into Skywalker Coffee that day was to keep out of sight of some Kanjiklub thugs that were in the area.  Your shop was the only one still open.”

Kylo remembered that day vividly, from the unusually heavy snow to the first time he had seen Hux.  He’d always considered it to be one of the most important days of his life, but now he didn’t know how to view it.  “You were hiding?”

Hux scowled.  Hux undeniably thought that the expression made him look fierce, but the way his nose scrunched up when he did it had never ceased to amuse Kylo.  Despite himself, Kylo found himself smiling once more.

“It was a strategic retreat,” Hux said pointedly, “I was outnumbered.  The last thing I had expected to find was a pretty barista that was so easy to talk to.  People are usually scared of me, they don’t normally tell me about their grandfather and give me cups of tea out of the goodness of their hearts.”

“Is that why you kept coming back?  To be treated like a normal person for once?”

Hux paused before answering.  He was choosing his words carefully, and not for the first time Kylo wished that Hux could be as impulsive as he was. “I told myself that the reason why I couldn’t stop thinking about you was because I was in debt to you. I convinced myself that as soon as I gave you that five dollars and paid for the tea, I’d forget about you.”

Kylo thought back to all of those times that Hux had tried to pay and he’d refused.  He hadn’t known at the time that his refusals had kept Hux ensnared and he wondered if, with hindsight, he’d have accepted the money at the first opportunity.

Then he remembered the last time he’d been given five dollars by Hux.  “Is that why you left the five when I was in hospital?”

“You’re a good man, Kylo, you were never going to continue a relationship with me once you knew the truth.  Your reaction when I rescued you said everything I needed to know. I had hoped to draw a line underneath everything and move on.”

“So again, why are you here?  This isn’t moving on, Hux.”

“No, it isn’t.”

They fell into silence.  There had been so many evenings during happier times when they’d sat together on Hux’s plush couch and not said a word, but that had been a comfortable silence.  The silence they shared on that couch in the Organa-Solo vacation home was painful; Kylo was extremely aware of every slight movement that Hux made and the seconds seemed to drag for hours.  He wanted to say something to relieve the strained atmosphere that existed between them, but couldn’t find any words to say.

Luckily, Hux hadn’t.  Not yet. “The First Order is finished.  We lost too many people on the day that I rescued you and the police were smart enough to raid the First Order offices that they knew about.  It gave us no time to regroup or to destroy our paper trails. There wasn’t even enough of us left to consolidate our power so I closed everything down.”

Kylo was aware of this, at least in the broadest terms.  He had known about the police raids that had happened in the following days and had eagerly pumped Han for any sign that Hux had been caught up in them.  He hadn’t been aware that the police had so successfully decimated the First Order however, and he doubted that even Han was aware of that.

“I spent fifteen years of my life turning a small street gang into an organized and structured syndicate.  When I ran away from my father and found myself in Seattle, the First Order took me under their wing. It became my family when I had no other and it was my home for fifteen years.  And now it’s finished.”

“You sound like you miss it,” said Kylo.

“I thought I would,” Hux admitted.  “It filled my entire life and dictated every second of my day—I thought I’d be lost without it.”

“But you’re not?”

“It’s not the First Order that I find myself lying awake at night and missing.”

In the two months since he’d discovered Hux’s true nature and his world had fallen apart, Kylo had found himself—in his weaker moments—dreaming of something like this.  He dreamed of Hux finding him again and saying all of the right things that would make all of the pain go away. It usually happened in the small hours of the morning when he couldn’t sleep and the coldness of the empty side of the bed seemed to seep into his bones.  He’d never expected that Hux might have felt that cold emptiness too, and he’d never dared to believe that Hux would one day appear on his doorstep full of apologies.

That didn’t make it better, however.  He had thought that he’d known Hux as well as he’d known himself, but Kylo had had enough time over the last two months to realize how wrong he’d been.  Hux lied to him, but Kylo had allowed him to. Whenever Hux had disappeared for business conventions for a few days, Kylo never pushed him for more information despite the doubts that had been growing inside him.  He’d never questioned Hux about his flash of anger at Leia’s birthday party, or about the source of his great wealth. Kylo had turned a blind eye to every single warning sign because he hadn’t wanted to see the truth.

Of course, he could never have guessed that Hux was the boss of an organized crime syndicate like the First Order, but didn’t that just say it all? Even in the immediate aftermath of his kidnapping and rescue, Kylo had picked at his hospital food and tried to explain away what had happened. He’d disbelieved his own memories and tried to rationalize Hux’s actions in that basement as anything other than what they were.

It was still difficult to think of Hux as being The General, even now.

The General was a cold and calculated killer that had remained in the shadows to rule a city through a network of fear.  He had controlled the underground and mercilessly cut down anyone that stood in his way. He was not the type of man that would be sat on a couch next to Kylo, nervously sipping on a cup of tea after apologizing and baring his soul.  

They were the same man, however.  Kylo knew that he couldn’t accept those heartfelt words and apologies without accepting the actions of The General, too.  They were both sides of the same coin, and even if Hux had truly left the First Order and all that entailed behind him, it was still his past. Hux’s hands were still stained with blood, and they were stains that could never be removed.

“I’ve lost everything that I spent my adult life working for, and all that I achieved,” Hux began, “and all I can think of is you.”“Hux—”

Hux shuffled forward on the couch and Kylo watched with bated breath as one of Hux’s shaking hands slowly reached out to cover one of his larger ones.  Hux’s touch was as electric as it always had been and Kylo found his doubts slowly melting away with every gentle stroke of Hux’s thumb. He was still angry with Hux—how could he not be?—and he tried to hold onto that despite the rapid beating of his heart.

“I’m not expecting your forgiveness and I know that I don’t deserve it.  I lied to you every day about my life, my job and my wealth. I just want you to know that despite all of that I never lied about my feelings for you.”

Kylo pulled his hand away from Hux and ran it through his hair.  “I wish I could believe what you’re saying.”

“If you can’t then I think we’ve said all that needs to be said,” Hux said softly.  

“If that’s all you’ve got, then I guess so.”

Hux nodded and then stood up.  He looked as stoic and firm as ever, but Kylo knew him better than that.  He could see the cracks in Hux’s passive demeanor; the balled up fists, the downcast eyes, the way he bounced on his heels slightly.  Hux was projecting calm detachment but he was burning inside, just as he always had.

Kylo didn’t want to look at Hux anymore so he turned his head to the side and stared out the window.  It was snowing. The flakes were light and intermittent, and certainly nothing that was going to stick on the ground—it was too early in the year for that, even in New York—but it reminded Kylo of that first day that they’d met.  

Hux seemed to notice the snow, too.  “I came here to explain and I’ve done that.  I don’t blame you for not wanting to hear it and I won’t take up any more of your time.  You have my word that you won’t hear from me again.”

Hux made his way to the front door of the cottage and Kylo found himself standing up and following him there.  Was this truly it? Was Hux going to walk out of his life forever? It was for the best, Kylo knew, but that didn’t make it any easier to bear.

It wasn’t until Hux put his hand on the door handle that Kylo found the words to ask the question that had been stuck in his mind since he’d first seen Hux earlier that night.  “If you could do it all again, would you change anything? Would you have told me who you were or never have come back to Skywalker Coffee?”

Hux paused to consider the question.  “I wouldn’t change a thing. Even though I lost everything because I rescued you, I wouldn’t give up those nine months we had together.  They were the best nine months of my life. I don’t regret anything.”

Kylo really had always been an impulsive type of man.  It had seen him stumble his way into more fights than he could remember during his previous time in New York and it had been something he’d worked hard on improving after he returned to Seattle.  Despite his best efforts, there were still far too many times when his mouth engaged before his brain or he acted without thinking. Sometimes it felt like he was a passerby that was watching someone else act and that was exactly how it felt when he slammed the door shut and pulled Hux into a kiss.

The kiss was merely lips against lips.  It was nothing like the millions of passionate kisses that they’d shared in the past.  Hux was stunned by Kylo’s action and didn’t react, and it took Kylo himself a few moments to fully realize what he’d done.  Kylo took a step back from Hux and had a million apologies waiting on his lips.

It was that step back, that fleeting moment when they were no longer touching, that was all that was needed for everything to fall into place.  

They crashed back together and it felt like the last two months had never happened.  There was no First Order, no General and no kidnapping between them—they were just Kylo and Hux, and they fit together as naturally as they always had.  Kylo lost himself in Hux’s kisses, and how the redhead always seemed torn between melting into Kylo’s arms and slamming the larger man against the wall.

One of Hux’s hands found its way into in his hair, continually sifting through the strands as if he was trying to memorize how soft it felt as it ran through his fingers.  Hux’s other hand lay flat on one of his shoulder blades; a constant reassuring pressure that kept their bodies close and soothed the panic Kylo could feel slowly building inside him.  He didn’t know what to do with his hands so he placed them on Hux’s hips, the denim of his jeans feeling so alien after months of only the most expensive wool and cotton or the smoothness of bare skin.

Hux’s beard was something else that Kylo needed to get used to.  

Hux slipped a leg between Kylo’s and pressed his thigh against his crotch as he gently rocked his hips forward.  Kylo easily matched his rhythm and took control, his large hands slipping from Hux’s hips to palm his ass instead.  Hux moaned in approval and broke the kiss, instead choosing to lick and nip at the long line of Kylo’s neck. Hux knew exactly what spots to target—he’d mapped out every inch of Kylo’s body over their months together—and he teased them with his talented mouth and wicked tongue.

Ever since he’d woken up in a hospital bed to a five dollar bill from Hux sitting beside him, Kylo’s sex drive had disappeared.  He’d thought that maybe Hux had taken it with him when he’d left, and now that Hux had reappeared, it had most definitely returned.  The lithe body that was rolling so skillfully against his was almost too much to bear. Kylo was no longer thinking, only acting, and it was in this spirit that he picked Hux up and carried him back to the living room.

Hux soon wrapped his legs around Kylo’s waist and allowed himself to be moved, easily settling onto Kylo’s lap when Kylo sat down on the couch. Hux tugged on Kylo’s ear with his teeth and Kylo practically purred. Hux’s sweater felt just as strange against Kylo’s hands as his jeans had, but the soft stomach and hard nipples that lay beneath felt exactly the same as his fingers ran over them.

Hux stopped nibbling on Kylo’s ear long enough to speak.  “I thought that you didn't believe what I was saying?”

“We're not exactly talking right now, Hux.”

Hux smirked and rolled his hips down, making sure that his hardening cock pressed against Kylo’s.  “I missed this. I missed you.”

“Me, too.” Kylo sighed.

Hux leaned back a little, his full weight coming to rest on Kylo’s thighs.  He placed his hands on Kylo’s broad shoulders and picked at the collar of Kylo’s shirt.  “I sense there is a ‘but’ about to follow.”

“You lied to me.  You put me and my family in danger.  I can’t just forget that because the sex was good and because I miss you.”

“I’m not asking you to.”

“Then what are you asking of me, Hux?  I thought that you’d said everything that you wanted to and was going to leave.”

Hux’s fingers were playing with the ends of his hair and Kylo wanted to push them away.  He couldn’t think straight while Hux’s weight was still warming his lap and he was torn between the need to pull Hux closer and the need to put as much distance between them as he could.  Only a few moments ago he had thought that Hux was going to leave and that—although difficult—he could accept it. All it had taken was for a few kisses and a few touches from Hux’s skillful hands for his resolve to crumble.

He hoped that Hux would leave.  He didn’t think he had the courage to throw him out.

“That was before,” Hux replied, “when I didn’t think there was a chance left for us.”

“There isn’t a chance,” Kylo said in an exasperated tone.  “I feel like I don’t even know you.”

“You know my favorite movies and how I like my eggs cooked in the morning.  You know what makes me happy and what makes me sad. And you know that I love you.”    

Hux had rarely said that during their time together.  It had only been in the dead of night that Hux had uttered those words and they’d usually been whispered against Kylo’s skin as their heart rates tried to return back to normal.  Hearing it now, while bathed in the warm lights of the living room and with Hux’s green eyes boring into his, was intoxicating.

“I don’t think love is enough, Hux.”

“I didn’t think it would be either and that’s why I nearly left earlier,” Hux admitted.  “But then you stopped me, and it reminded me of something.” 

Hux smiled.  It was the type of smile he’d used on Kylo a thousand times before.  It was a smile that said he knew something that Kylo didn’t; that he had an ace up his sleeve and was already two steps ahead.  Kylo didn’t know what Hux was planning but he wasn’t worried. It was such a typically Hux smile and for the first time since he’d arrived on Kylo’s doorstep he looked like the man Kylo had fallen in love with.    

“It was your grandfather Anakin that founded Skywalker Coffee, was it not?”

Kylo didn’t know why Hux was talking about Anakin now and he would rather not talk about his grandfather while Hux was still shifting around on his lap.  He didn’t say anything, however, just nodded in agreement.

“I remember you telling me his story, once.  The problems he’d faced as a young child, the trouble he’d got himself into as a young man, the death of his wife in childbirth.  What stuck with me the most though was how much he’d struggled after your grandmother died.”

The death of Padmé had sent Anakin into a downward spiral that had taken him years to crawl out of.  His two children—Luke and Leia—had been placed with family and friends and Kylo knew that Leia had never really forgiven Anakin for that.  Eventually Anakin had managed to pull himself back from the brink and had returned to his family and to his children.

“Despite the things that he had done, Anakin was able to get his life back on track and return to the people he loved.  He even started Skywalker Coffee,” Hux finished.

“Is there a point to this history lesson?”

“And then there’s you,” Hux continued.  Kylo knew that Hux had heard his question, he was just choosing to ignore it.  “You went to New York and found yourself involved in some petty street crime—a few robberies here and there and a little bit of drug dealing.  Illegal, certainly, but nothing too serious.”

Kylo didn’t like being reminded of his past and he’d been doing his best to block it from his mind ever since he’d stepped foot back in New York earlier that day.  He wasn’t proud of the things he’d done during those years, but he had done them to survive.

“And just like your grandfather, you were able to turn your life around and walk away from it all.  Your family were just glad to have you back, of course, and you were soon managing your grandfather’s coffee shop.  Your story is so similar to Anakin’s—you both received second chances from your family that other people may not have given you.”

Kylo was more than aware of that.  Anakin’s story and how he had founded Skywalker Coffee was a story he’d heard since he’d been old enough to understand.  It was a tale of redemption that Kylo had found himself drawn to more and more as he’d grown and it had taken on a new meaning as he’d dragged himself away from the streets of New York and back into the good graces of his family in Seattle.  

The parallels between himself and his beloved grandfather were startling. He wasn’t surprised that Hux had realized them, too.

Suddenly, Kylo understood what Hux was trying to say.  “You think that you deserve redemption and a second chance, too?”

“I think that it’s in the Skywalker blood to fuck things up.  But it’s also in the Skywalker blood to forgive the people you love.”

Hux tilted forward and kissed him again, his lips brushing against Kylo’s in the softest of caresses.  It would be so much easier to lean into the kiss than to try and unravel the confusing thoughts in his head so Kylo did exactly that.  Kissing Hux was simple; talking to him was anything but.

He loved Hux.  That hadn’t changed in the two months since they’d been together.  Even when he’d been at his angriest—when the mere thought of Hux’s name had caused him to punch whatever was in arm’s reach—he’d still loved Hux.  He couldn’t imagine a time where he would stop.

He thought back to what Hux had told him earlier—of how he’d run away from home and found a family in the First Order.  Kylo had found a sense of belonging on the streets of New York just like Hux had on the streets of Seattle, but Kylo had always had a family waiting for him back home.  It was knowing that he could go back to Seattle—that Han and Leia would welcome him back and give him another chance—that had given him the confidence to walk away from a lifestyle that was rapidly escalating into something much more serious than a few drug deals and pickpocketing.

Hux had never had that escape route.  He’d never had that chance to run back to a loving family.  Was it any wonder that he’d stayed and eventually taken over?

Kylo placed his hands on Hux’s shoulders and pushed him away gently.  He needed some space. “So we go back to Seattle and run Skywalker Coffee together?  Is that the plan?”

“I’m never going back to Seattle,” Hux declared.  “I need a clean break from my past.”

Kylo could understand that.  It was why he’d avoided New York for all of those years.  “You’re actually serious about not going back to the First Order?”

“There is no First Order anymore and I have no interest in resurrecting it in Seattle or anywhere else.”

“Then what are you going to do?”

Hux stood up and it left Kylo feeling cold.  “That all depends on you, Kylo. If you ask me to leave, then this time, I truly will.  You’ll never hear from me again. But, you need to say it.”

Kylo looked up at Hux and saw the man that had burst into that basement with a gun in his hand, fire in his eyes and blood on his face.  He saw The General; he saw the fear, the corruption, the fraud and the murders.

But he also saw Hux.  He saw the man who laughed at his off-key singing, ate his always slightly overdone cooking and woke him up in the morning with a soft smile and a morning breath kiss.

Hux had said that The General was finished and would never return.  Kylo desperately wanted to believe him, but even if The General had no future, could Kylo forget his past?

The thought that finally made Kylo decide was one that hit a little closer to home.  He knew that if circumstances had been different and he hadn’t have had a loving family to return to, he would have stayed in New York.  If he’d have stayed, then he too could have made his way through the ranks until he was the head of a criminal empire.

Kylo had always known that his life story was similar to his grandfather’s. He’d never realized how close it had come to being similar to someone like The General’s.

“I can’t forgive you, not yet,” Kylo said softly, “but I don’t want you to leave, either.”

The smile that Hux gave him this time wasn’t knowing or secretive.  It was genuine and it was warm, and it was a smile that would never have been seen on the lips of The General.  “That’s a good place to start.”


	6. Epilogue

It was snowing.

That wasn’t unusual for January in London and as Kylo stood at the shop window and watched it continue to fall, he couldn’t help but smile.  If he had his dates right—and he was sure that he did—then today marked two years since he’d first met Hux. It had snowed then too, of course, and he idly wondered if snow followed them around as it always seemed to fall on their most important days.

Today was important because it saw the opening of the second branch of Skywalker Coffee.  Kylo was pretty certain that Anakin had never envisioned expanding internationally, but he thought that his grandfather would be proud of him, all the same.  Rey and Finn had taken over the original Skywalker Coffee in Seattle, leaving Kylo free to raid his trust fund in order to make a fresh start with a fresh shop in a fresh city.

He hadn’t done it alone, of course.

Hux was behind the counter, glaring at the coffee machine that he could still barely operate as he served their first few customers.  Working on opening the coffee shop together had been very therapeutic for them both. It had given them something to focus on while they had still been working on patching their relationship back together, and it had soothed Kylo’s fears that Hux would one day become The General again.

They never spoke of that anymore.  They now lived in a world where the First Order and The General didn’t exist.  Kylo had no idea what Hux had done with the money that he’d earned during his criminal years, as Hux had no longer showed any no sign of being wealthy.  If it hadn’t have been for his memories—and the slight bump in his nose from where his kidnappers had broken it—it would have been easy to believe that none of it had ever happened.

Kylo would never forget it though.  Just in case.

He had to admit that despite his lingering reservations, they were happy. Hux smiled more now and was more free with his affection. The redhead was reveling in his law-abiding life, even if he did hate the coffee machine and was occasionally more threatening than needed when he was unhappy with the service in restaurants.  Kylo was content, too. There were no out of town conferences where Hux was uncontactable for days on end, no Rolls Royces on call or flashes of unexplained anger. He couldn’t ask for a better boyfriend than Hux had been since their move to London, and despite his attempts to find cracks in Hux’s perfection, there were none to be seen.

A blast of cold air came into the shop as more customers came in.  Trade had been brisk on their opening day and Kylo was glad that the opening had progressed smoothly.  The shop decor was almost an exact copy of the original Skywalker Coffee in Seattle and as he stood there next to a bookcase full of old books that Hux had sourced from local charity shops as a 1970s rock soundtrack played, it felt like home.  There was even a photo of Anakin—looking handsome and happy on his wedding day—that hung on the walls.

The initial move to London had not been easy for Kylo.  He had lied to his family more times than he wanted to recall and their supportive smiles as he’d boarded the plane still haunted him.  His family had always thought that his separation from Hux following his kidnapping had been due to Hux’s mother being ill, and it had been far too easy to spin that lie into being the reason why he’d left to build a life with Hux overseas in London.  He’d left Seattle with the blessing of Han and Leia.

Hux hadn’t understood why that blessing had hurt Kylo as much as it did, but he knew better than to question it.  Kylo had everything he wanted, and he felt guilty for having it all.

Kylo was so lost in his thoughts that he didn’t notice when Hux came to stand next to him.  “Are you going to do any work this afternoon or are you leaving everything to me?”

Kylo’s bad mood immediately lifted at the light tone in Hux’s voice and the feel of a firm hand rubbing his lower back.  “I thought that you could use the practice.”

“I think that coffee machine is faulty,” Hux said.  “It never does the right thing.”

Kylo smiled.  “It works fine for me.”

Hux scowled but let the subject drop.  They stood there for a few moments, simply looking around at the coffee shop they’d opened together and took it all in.  

Finally, it was Hux that spoke again.  “Thank you.”

“Hm?  For what?”

“For giving me that chance.  You don’t regret it, do you?”

Kylo thought back over the last fifteen months and of all of the lies he’d told his family, the worries he’d had over whether Hux could truly change and the danger he was potentially putting himself in.  Then he thought about waking up next to Hux every morning, the contentment he felt, and the achievement of opening his very own coffee shop.

Kylo had bought himself back from the abyss when he’d left New York to return to Seattle.  And now, he’d helped Hux come back from his own abyss, too.

Anakin truly would be proud of him.

“I don’t regret anything.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! This was a lot of fun to write.
> 
> Come and say hi on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/rosensilence) or [Tumblr](http://rosensilence.tumblr.com/)!
> 
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